Identification of structural proteins from shrimp white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) by 2DE-MS

White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is a major shrimp pathogen that also infects many other species of crustaceans. Its 305-kb double-stranded DNA genome has the capacity to encode 181 presumptive proteins. In an attempt to identify the viral proteins from the 181 theoretical proteins, proteins of the purified WSSV were separated by two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE). More than 60 protein spots were revealed, as detected by silver staining, from which 12 viral proteins were identified by mass spectrometry. In total, 25 WSSV proteins, including those reported in one of our earlier studies (Huang et al., Mol Cell Proteomics 2002;1:223-231), were revealed by this proteomic approach, and their corresponding genes were further confirmed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Two of them were characterized to be WSSV envelope proteins using immuno-electron microscopy. Our study showed that the proteomic approach is a powerful method for discovering the viral structural proteins and their corresponding genes.