Quantitative analysis of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-associated coronavirus-infected cells using proteomic approaches: implications for cellular responses to virus infection

We present the first proteomic analysis on the cellular response to severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) infection. The differential proteomes of Vero E6 cells with and without infection of the SARS-CoV were resolved and quantitated with two-dimensional differential gel electrophoresis followed by ESI-MS/MS identification. Moreover isotope-coded affinity tag technology coupled with two-dimensional LC-MS/MS were also applied to the differential proteins of infected cells. By combining these two complementary strategies, 355 unique proteins were identified and quantitated with 186 of them differentially expressed (at least 1.5-fold quantitative alteration) between infected and uninfected Vero E6 cells. The implication for cellular responses to virus infection was analyzed in depth according to the proteomic results. Thus, the present work provides large scale protein-related information to investigate the mechanism of SARS-CoV infection and pathogenesis.