Original Article Proteomic analysis of BmN cells (Bombyx mori) in response to infection with Nosema bombycis

Nosema bombycis (N. bombycis, Nb) is an obligate intracel-lular parasite, which can cause pebrine disease in the silk-worm. To investigate the effects of N. bombycis infection on the host cells, proteomes from BmN cells that had or had not been infected with N. bombycis at different infection stages were characterized with two-dimensional gel electro-phoresis and MALDI-TOF/TOF mass spectrometry, which identified 24 differentially expressed host proteins with sig-nificant intensity differences (P < 0.05) at least at one time point in mock- and N. bombycis infected cells. Notably, gene ontology analyses showed that these proteins are involved in many important biological reactions. During the infec-tion phase, proteins involved in energy metabolism and oxidative stress had up-regulated expression. Two proteins participated in ubiquitin-dependent protein catabolic pro-cess had down-regulated expression. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to analyze the tran-scriptional profiles of these identified proteins. Taken to-gether, the abundance changes, putative functions, and participation in biological reactions for the identified pro-teins produce a host-responsive protein model inN. bombycis-infected BmN cells. These findings further our knowledge about the effect of energy defect parasites on the host cells