Decreased online hepatitis information seeking during the COVID-19 pandemic: an Infodemiology study.

Introduction: Viral hepatitis remains a public health concern worldwide, mainly in developing countries. The public's awareness and interest in viral hepatitis information are essential in preventing and controlling this disease. Infodemiology has been used as a surrogate to assess the general understanding of disease and measure public awareness of health topics. However, this analysis has not been applied to viral hepatitis. Thus, this study investigated the online global search interest for viral hepatitis in the last decade, focusing on the period before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Global online search interest for hepatitis was measured using the Google Trends™ database. Spearman's rank-order correlation correlated country-specific characteristics and prevalence data with search volume index. Results: There was a significant reduction in online search interest for hepatitis during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020). People searching for hepatitis are also interested in hepatitis vaccination. Search volume index is positively correlated with viral hepatitis and HIV prevalence and negatively correlated with GDP. This correlation mirrors the high burden of viral hepatitis in developing countries and their citizens' desire to be informed about this disease. Conclusions: Our study found decreased global online interest in viral hepatitis during the pandemic. Moreover, higher online interest in hepatitis was observed in countries with a lower gross domestic product and high viral hepatitis and HIV prevalence. We demonstrated that global online interest toward viral hepatitis could be assessed through the infodemiologic approach using Google Trends™.

Type II restriction modification system in Ureaplasma parvum OMC-P162 strain.

Ureaplasma parvum serovar 3 strain, OMC-P162, was isolated from the human placenta of a preterm delivery at 26 weeks' gestation. In this study, we sequenced the complete genome of OMC-P162 and compared it with other serovar 3 strains isolated from patients with different clinical conditions. Ten unique genes in OMC-P162, five of which encoded for hypothetical proteins, were identified. Of these, genes UPV_229 and UPV_230 formed an operon whose open reading frames were predicted to code for a DNA methyltransferase and a hypothetical protein, respectively. DNA modification analysis of the OMC-P162 genome identified N4-methylcytosine (m4C) and N6-methyladenine (m6A), but not 5-methylocytosine (m5C). UPV230 recombinant protein displayed endonuclease activity and recognized the CATG sequence, resulting in a blunt cut between A and T. This restriction enzyme activity was identical to that of the cultivated OMC-P162 strain, suggesting that this restriction enzyme was naturally expressed in OMC-P162. We designated this enzyme as UpaP162. Treatment of pT7Blue plasmid with recombinant protein UPV229 completely blocked UpaP162 restriction enzyme activity. These results suggest that the UPV_229 and UPV_230 genes act as a type II restriction-modification system in Ureaplasma OMC-P162.