Tandem mass tag (TMT) labeling-based quantitative proteomic analysis reveals the cellular protein characteristics of 16HBE cells infected with coxsackievirus A10 and the potential effect of HMGB1 on viral replication

Coxsackievirus A10 (CV-A10) is recognized as one of the most important pathogens associated with hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) in young children under 5 years of age worldwide, and it can lead to fatal neurological complications. However, available commercial vaccines fail to protect against CV-A10. Therefore, there is an urgent need to study new protein targets of CV-A10 and develop novel vaccine-based therapeutic strategies. Advances in proteomics in recent years have enabled a comprehensive understanding of host pathogen interactions. Here, to study CV-A10-host interactions, a global quantitative proteomic analysis was conducted to investigate the molecular characteristics of host cell proteins and identify key host proteins involved in CV-A10 infection. Using tandem mass tagging (TMT)-based mass spectrometry, a total of 6615 host proteins were quantified, with 293 proteins being differentially regulated. To ensure the validity and reliability of the proteomics data, three randomly selected proteins were verified by Western blot analysis, and the results were consistent with the TMT results. Further functional analysis showed that the upregulated and downregulated proteins were associated with diverse biological activities and signaling pathways, such as metabolic processes, biosynthetic processes, the AMPK signaling pathway, the neurotrophin signaling pathway, the MAPK signaling pathway, and the GABAergic synaptic signaling. Moreover, subsequent bioinformatics analysis demonstrated that these differentially expressed proteins contained distinct domains, were localized in different subcellular components, and generated a complex network. Finally, high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) might be a key host factor involved in CV-A10 replication. In summary, our findings provide comprehensive insights into the proteomic profile during CV-A10 infection, deepen our understanding of the relationship between CV-A10 and host cells, and establish a proteomic signature for this viral infection. Moreover, the observed effect of HMGB1 on CV-A10 replication suggests that it might be a potential therapeutic target treatment of CV-A10 infection.