Comparative proteomics reveals novel components at the plasma membrane of differentiated HepaRG cells and different distribution in hepatocyte- and biliary-like cells

PLoS One. 2013 Aug 20;8(8):e71859. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0071859. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a human pathogen causing severe liver disease and eventually death. Despite important progress in deciphering HBV internalization, the early virus-cell interactions leading to infection are not known. HepaRG is a human bipotent liver cell line bearing the unique ability to differentiate towards a mixture of hepatocyte- and biliary-like cells. In addition to expressing metabolic functions normally found in liver, differentiated HepaRG cells support HBV infection in vitro, thus resembling cultured primary hepatocytes more than other hepatoma cells. Therefore, extensive characterization of the plasma membrane proteome from HepaRG cells would allow the identification of new cellular factors potentially involved in infection. Here we analyzed the plasma membranes of non-differentiated and differentiated HepaRG cells using nanoliquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry to identify the differences between the proteomes and the changes that lead to differentiation of these cells. We followed up on differentially-regulated proteins in hepatocytes- and biliary-like cells, focusing on Cathepsins D and K, Cyclophilin A, Annexin 1/A1, PDI and PDI A4/ERp72. Major differences between the two proteomes were found, including differentially regulated proteins, protein-protein interactions and intracellular localizations following differentiation. The results advance our current understanding of HepaRG differentiation and the unique properties of these cells.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Cell Differentiation*
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cell Membrane / metabolism*
  • Hepatocytes / metabolism*
  • Humans
  • Membrane Proteins / chemistry
  • Membrane Proteins / isolation & purification
  • Membrane Proteins / metabolism*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Peptide Fragments / chemistry
  • Peptide Mapping
  • Protein Transport
  • Proteome / chemistry
  • Proteome / isolation & purification
  • Proteome / metabolism*
  • Proteomics
  • Up-Regulation

Substances

  • Membrane Proteins
  • Peptide Fragments
  • Proteome

Grants and funding

The work was supported by the Romanian Academy project 3 of the Institute of Biochemistry and POSDRU/89/1.5/S/60746; Catalina Petrareanu was supported by the Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development 2007–2013 of the Romanian Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Protection through the Financial Agreement POSDRU/107/1.5/S/76903 grant. This work was also supported in part by the Army Research Office through the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP grant #W911NF-11-1-0304 to CCD). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.