Glycometabolism change during Burkholderia pseudomallei infection in RAW264.7 cells by proteomic analysis

Burkholderia pseudomallei is a Gram-negative intracellular bacterium that causes melioidosis, a life-threatening disease. The interaction of B. pseudomallei with its host is complicated, and cellular response to B. pseudomallei infection is still largely unknown. In this study, we aimed to determine host-cell responses to B. pseudomallei at the proteomics level. We performed proteomic profiling of B. pseudomallei HNBP001-infected mouse macrophage RAW264.7 cells to characterize the cellular response dynamics during infection. Western blot analysis was utilized for the validation of changes in protein expression. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses were conducted using the clusterProfiler R package. Compared with the negative control (NC) group, 811 common proteins varied over time, with a cut-off level of two fold change and an adjusted P-value less than 0.05. The bioinformatics analysis revealed that the proteins significantly changed in the B. pseudomallei HNBP001 infection group (Bp group) were enriched in glycometabolism pathways, including glycolysis, fructose and mannose metabolism, pentose phosphate pathway, galactose metabolism, and carbon metabolism. Western blot analysis verified three selected proteins involved in glycometabolism pathways, namely PGM1, PKM, and PGK1 were increase over time post the infection. Furthermore, in vitro functional analysis revealed an increased glucose uptake and decreased ATP production and O-GlcNAcylation in the Bp group compared with control group, suggesting that B. pseudomallei HNBP001 infection induces changes in glycometabolism in RAW264.7 cells. These results indicate that glycometabolism pathways change in RAW264.7 cells post B. pseudomallei HNBP001 infection, providing important insights into the intimate interaction between B. pseudomallei and macrophages.