Characterization of Host Cell Potential Proteins Interacting with OsHV-1 Membrane Proteins

The interaction between viral membrane associate proteins and host cellular surface molecules should facilitate the attachment and entry of OsHV-1 into host cells. Thus, blocking the putative membrane proteins ORF25 and ORF72 of OsHV-1 with antibodies that have previously been reported to subdue OsHV-1 replication in host cells, especially ORF25. In this study, prey proteins in host hemocytes were screened by pull-down assay with recombinant baits ORF25 and ORF72, respectively. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis of these prey proteins revealed that most of them were mainly associated with binding, structural molecule activity and transport activity in the molecular function category. The protein–protein interaction (PPI) network of the prey proteins was constructed by STRING and clustered via K-means. For both ORF25 and ORF72, three clusters of these prey proteins were distinguished that were mainly associated with cytoskeleton assembly, energy metabolism and nucleic acid processing. ORF25 tended to function in synergy with actins, while ORF72 functioned mainly with tubulins. The above results suggest that these two putative membrane proteins, ORF25 and ORF72, might serve a role in the transport of viral particles with the aid of a cytoskeleton inside cells.