Clofarabine can be administered intravenously or given orally. Clofarabine enters cells via hENT1, hENT2, and hCNT2, where upon it is phosphorylated by deoxycytidine kinase to generate clofarabine-5´-monophosphate. The rate-limiting step in clofarabine metabolism is clofarabine-5´-diphosphosphate. Clofarabine-5´-triphosphate is the active-metabolite, and it inhibits ribonucleotide reductase, resulting in a decrease cellular dNTP concentrations, which promotes greater incorporation of clofarabine-5´-triphosphate during DNA synthesis. Embedded clofarabine-5´-monophosphate in the DNA promotes polymerase arrest at the replication fork, triggering DNA repair mechanisms that without repair lead to DNA strand breaks in vitro and cytochrome c-mediated apoptosis in vitro. Studies using cell lines have shown that clofarabine-5´-triphosphate can also be incorporated into RNA.