Fig. 5.

Ciclopirox inhibits HBV replication in an in vitro HBV infection model. a Schematic depiction of the experiment. HepG2-NTCP and Huh-7-NTCP cells were treated with ciclopirox for 6 h and exposed to HBV for 16 h. After washing, the cells were treated daily with ciclopirox and cultured for another 14 days. b NTCP protein expression analyzed by immunoblot analysis. c GFP protein expression analyzed by flow cytometry. d–f Quantitative PCR with an HBV DNA primer and probe set was used to measure secreted HBV DNA (d), intracellular cccDNA (e), and intracellular HBV rcDNA (f). Intracellular cccDNA was also detected by southern blot analysis (e). The data in b–f are representative of three independent experiments and are expressed as mean ± SD. The error bars represent the ± SD. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01, by unpaired two-tailed Student’s t-tests. Source data are provided as a Source Data file