A comparative approach to characterize the landscape of host-pathogen protein-protein interactions

J Vis Exp. 2013 Jul 18:(77):e50404. doi: 10.3791/50404.

Abstract

Significant efforts were gathered to generate large-scale comprehensive protein-protein interaction network maps. This is instrumental to understand the pathogen-host relationships and was essentially performed by genetic screenings in yeast two-hybrid systems. The recent improvement of protein-protein interaction detection by a Gaussia luciferase-based fragment complementation assay now offers the opportunity to develop integrative comparative interactomic approaches necessary to rigorously compare interaction profiles of proteins from different pathogen strain variants against a common set of cellular factors. This paper specifically focuses on the utility of combining two orthogonal methods to generate protein-protein interaction datasets: yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) and a new assay, high-throughput Gaussia princeps protein complementation assay (HT-GPCA) performed in mammalian cells. A large-scale identification of cellular partners of a pathogen protein is performed by mating-based yeast two-hybrid screenings of cDNA libraries using multiple pathogen strain variants. A subset of interacting partners selected on a high-confidence statistical scoring is further validated in mammalian cells for pair-wise interactions with the whole set of pathogen variants proteins using HT-GPCA. This combination of two complementary methods improves the robustness of the interaction dataset, and allows the performance of a stringent comparative interaction analysis. Such comparative interactomics constitute a reliable and powerful strategy to decipher any pathogen-host interplays.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Video-Audio Media

MeSH terms

  • Arecaceae / enzymology
  • HEK293 Cells
  • High-Throughput Screening Assays / methods*
  • Host-Pathogen Interactions*
  • Humans
  • Luciferases / chemistry
  • Luciferases / metabolism
  • Protein Interaction Maps*
  • Transfection / methods
  • Two-Hybrid System Techniques*
  • Yeasts / genetics
  • Yeasts / metabolism

Substances

  • Luciferases