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A Comparative Approach to Characterize the Landscape of Host-Pathogen Protein-Protein Interactions
13:56

A Comparative Approach to Characterize the Landscape of Host-Pathogen Protein-Protein Interactions

Published on: July 18, 2013

Infection Strategies of Bacterial and Viral Pathogens through Pathogen-Human Protein-Protein Interactions

Saliha Durmuş Tekir1, Tunahan Cakir, Kutlu Ö Ulgen

  • 1Biosystems Engineering Research Group, Department of Chemical Engineering, Boğaziçi University istanbul, Turkey.

Frontiers in Microbiology
|February 21, 2012
PubMed

Insights

Pathogens like bacteria and viruses infect humans by interacting with host proteins. They target highly connected proteins, with viruses preferring more central ones, to disrupt essential cellular functions and immune responses.

Area of Science:

  • Infectious disease research
  • Systems biology
  • Bioinformatics

Background:

  • Infectious diseases remain a major global health threat, causing significant mortality.
  • Understanding pathogen-host interactions is crucial for deciphering infection mechanisms.
  • Pathogen-human protein interactions are key to how microbes cause disease.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To comprehensively analyze pathogen-human protein interactions.
  • To compare bacterial and viral infection strategies.
  • To identify common and distinct host protein targeting mechanisms.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized the PHISTO database for pathogen-host interaction data.
  • Analyzed 23,435 interactions involving 5,210 human proteins.
  • Applied network analysis (connectivity, betweenness centrality) and Gene Ontology enrichment.

Main Results:

  • Pathogen-targeted human proteins exhibit higher network connectivity and centrality.
  • Both bacteria and viruses target hub and bottleneck proteins.
  • Viruses preferentially target more central human proteins than bacteria.
  • Bacteria target immune response proteins; viruses manipulate cellular processes.

Conclusions:

  • Targeting highly connected host proteins is a conserved pathogen strategy.
  • Distinct strategies exist: bacteria focus on immunity, viruses on cellular machinery.
  • Shared targets are enriched in metabolic process regulation, a novel finding.
Keywords:
PHISTObottleneckgene ontologyhubinfection strategypathogen–human protein–protein interactions

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