Research on the equity and spatial accessibility of oral medical resources in Wuhan / 公共卫生与预防医学

Objective To analyze the equity of the allocation of oral medical resources and the accessibility of health service capabilities in Wuhan. Methods The equity of oral medical resources was calculated with Gini coefficient and Theil index, accessibility was assessed by two-step floating catchment area model, and the spatial autocorrelation was used to study the high-low clustering of accessibility. Results The Gini coefficient of oral medical resources based on population level was around 0.3, and the Gini coefficient of oral medical resources based on geographic area was greater than 0.6. Theil index calculation results were similar. In terms of overall accessibility, the area with poor accessibility was 2,428 square kilometers, reaching 28.38% of the total area, while the area with better accessibility accounted for 14.18%. Conclusion The allocation of oral medical care resources based on population distribution was fairer and better than that based on geographic area. Moreover, the geographical accessibility varies greatly between regions, showing the characteristics of high-high cluster and low-low cluster.

Screening for inhibitor of episomal DNA identified dicumarol as a hepatitis B virus inhibitor.

Currently, there is no available therapy to eradicate hepatitis B virus (HBV) in chronically infected individuals. This is due to the difficulty in eliminating viral covalently closed circular (ccc) DNA, which is central to the gene expression and replication of HBV. We developed an assay system for nuclear circular DNA using an integration-deficient lentiviral vector. This vector produced non-integrated circular DNA in nuclei of infected cells. We engineered this vector to encode firefly luciferase to monitor the lentiviral episome DNA. We screened 3,840 chemicals by this assay for luciferase-reducing activity and identified dicumarol, which is known to have anticoagulation activity. We confirmed that dicumarol reduced lentiviral episome DNA. Furthermore, dicumarol inhibited HBV replication in cell culture using NTCP-expressing HepG2 and primary human hepatocytes. Dicumarol reduced intracellular HBV RNA, DNA, supernatant HBV antigens and DNA. We also found that dicumarol reduced the cccDNA level in HBV infected cells, but did not affect HBV adsorption/entry. This is a novel assay system for screening inhibitors targeting nuclear cccDNA and is useful for finding new antiviral substances for HBV.