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Background: The prevalence of obesity worldwide has been steadily increasing. This has generated an uptake in research determining the cause of obesity. One of the primary drivers that have been identified is the ‘‘obesogenic environment’, which is an environment that contains features that increase excess weight in individuals or populations. Obesogenic environments are unevenly distributed with socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods being more affected. Methods: This survey is part of the CIVISANO (‘Community-based participatory research to tackle the disparities in health-enhancing lifestyle within the municipality environment’) project, which will be conducted in two municipalities. Respondents will be socioeconomically disadvantaged adults between 25- and 65-years old. To gain information on individual characteristics and perceptions of the obesogenic environment, residents will be invited to complete a survey. Since it is known that socio-economically disadvantaged respondents are difficult to reach a non-random active recruitment approach will be applied. The following variables are included in the survey: sociodemographic information, subjective health and anthropometrics, dietary habits, food security and physical activity. Items from the SPOTLIGHT project survey and NEMS-P survey were added to assess respondent’s perceptions of features of the obesogenic environment. Additional variables on individual characteristics were based on items from the Belgian National Health Interview Survey of 2019. Results: Through the survey, we expect to gain insight into the perceptions of socio-economically disadvantaged adults on obesogenic features of their local environment. Initial results from the survey will be available in the upcoming months. Conclusions: The construction of instruments to assess the context-specific features, which can be compared with objective measurements, can increase our knowledge of contextual determinants of the obesogenic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the effectiveness of (E)-5-(2-bromovinyl)-2'-deoxyuridine (BVDU) in treating patients with herpes zoster. Replication of herpes simplex virus type 1 in cell culture; Effect of BVDU on normal cell metabolism; Administration of BVDU to patients with herpes.

Antiherpes therapies are principally targeted at viral thymidine kinases and utilize nucleoside analogs, the triphosphates of which are inhibitors of viral DNA polymerase or result in toxic effects when incorporated into DNA. The most frequently used drug, aciclovir (Zovirax), is a relatively poor substrate for thymidine kinase and high-resolution structural information on drugs and other molecules binding to the target is therefore important for the design of novel and more potent chemotherapy, both in antiherpes treatment and in gene therapy systems where thymidine kinase is expressed. Here, we report for the first time the binary complexes of HSV-1 thymidine kinase (TK) with the drug molecules aciclovir and penciclovir, determined by X-ray crystallography at 2.37 A resolution. Moreover, from new data at 2.14 A resolution, the refined structure of the complex of TK with its substrate deoxythymidine (R = 0.209 for 96% of all data) now reveals much detail concerning substrate and solvent interactions with the enzyme. Structures of the complexes of TK with four halogen-containing substrate analogs have also been solved, to resolutions better than 2.4 A. The various TK inhibitors broadly fall into three groups which together probe the space of the enzyme active site in a manner that no one molecule does alone, so giving a composite picture of active site interactions that can be exploited in the design of novel compounds.

The 3'-fluoro-and 3'-azido-substituted derivatives of 2',3'-dideoxythymidine (ddThd), 2',3'-dideoxyuridine (ddUrd), 2',3'-dideoxy-5-ethyluridine (ddEtUrd) and 2',3'-dideoxycytidine (ddCyd) have been synthesized and evaluated for their anti-retrovirus activity [against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and murine Moloney sarcoma virus (MSV)]. Based on their 50% effective doses the most potent inhibitors of HIV replication in human MT4 lymphocytes were: FddThd (0.001 microM), AzddThd (0.004 microM), FddUrd (0.04 microM) and AzddUrd (0.36 microM). Their selectivity indexes were 197, 5000, 500 and 677, respectively. In contrast, none of the 3'-substituted ddEtUrd derivatives had a marked antiviral effect. The 2',3'-dideoxynucleoside analogues showed poor, if any, substrate affinity for (bacterial) dThd phosphorylase. AzddThd and FddThd inhibited human dThd kinase to a much greater extent (Ki/Km: 0.66 and 3.4, respectively) than did AzddUrd or FddUrd (Ki/Km: 71 and 171, respectively). The Ki/Km values of FddCyd and AzddCyd for human dCyd kinase were about 60. Although phosphorylation is a prerequisite for the anti-retrovirus activity of the 2',3'-dideoxynucleoside derivatives, there is no close correlation between the anti-retrovirus potency of the 3'-fluoro- and 3'-azido-substituted ddUrd, ddThd, ddEtUrd and ddCyd derivatives and their affinity for dThd kinase or dCyd kinase.

The 2'-substituted analog of poly(inosinic acid) ((I)n), poly(2'-fluoro-2'-deoxyinosinic acid) ((dIfl)n) served as an effective template for the RNA-directed DNA polymerase (reverse transcriptase) from Moloney murine leukemia virus. When assayed under the same conditions, the parent compound (I)n showed little, if any, template activity. In the presence of other templates, i.e. poly (2-O-methylcytidylic acid), (dIfl)n could also assume the role of primer for the reverse transcriptase reaction, whereas, again, (I)n failed to do so.

The synthetic polyanion, polymethacrylic acid, was applied intravenously to thoracic duct cannulated rats. An increase of the lymphocyte count occurred in the lymph and in the peripheral blood. Polymethacrylic acid mobilized the lymphocytes from the reservoirs.