BHK-21 cell iTRAQ - Proteome analysis of Duck Tembusu virus (DTMUV)-infected BHK-21 cells

Duck Tembusu virus (DTMUV) is a newly emerging pathogenic flavivirus that has caused huge economic losses to the duck industry in China since 2010. Moreover, DTMUV can also infect geese, chickens, house sparrows and replicate in in the brain, spleen, liver and kidneys of BALB/c mice, which poses public health concerns. So developing vaccines to combat DTMUV becomes urgent. Baby hamster kidney cell line (BHK-21) is usually employed to produce veterinary vaccine and DTMUV as well as other flaviviruses can be propagated in BHK-21 cells. However, information about mammalian host cell responses to DTMUV infection is limited. In this study, LC–MS/MS coupled to iTRAQ labeling was used to quantitatively identify differentially expressed cellular proteins in DTMUV-infected BHK-21 cells. We identified 192 differentially expressed cellular proteins including 11 upregulated proteins and 8 downregulated at 24 hpostinfection; 25 upregulated proteins and 151 downregulated at 48 h postinfection. Some of these proteins were involved in viral infection.