Scientists map the interaction between human and viral proteins

Researchers at Columbia University in the United States have developed a computational framework for inferring the interactions between viral proteins and human proteins, using this method to obtain a wealth of information about how viruses infect humans and to map the interactions between all known human-infected viruses and proteins between their infected cells. The paper was published recently in the journal Cell.
Viruses are parasitic microorganisms within cells that use cellular mechanisms through protein-to-protein interactions, and cells also rely on this action to initiate immune response mechanisms to viral invasion. Therefore, understanding the interactions between proteins is critical to understanding the relationship between viruses and host cells.
At present, scientists mainly use high-volume methods to study protein-to-protein interactions, although many new discoveries have been made, but the lack of scalability of this method also limits research. This time, Columbia University researchers developed a computational framework P-HIPSTer, using protein structure information to infer the interaction between viral proteins and human proteins, can effectively compensate for the lack of scalability of high-flux methods.
Using P-HIPSTer, researchers studied more than 1,000 known human-infected viruses and about 13,000 proteins they encode, resulting in a map of human-viral protein interactions. The map covers about 282,000 possible pairs of interacting proteins, and the biological information it reveals is of great value to human immunology and infectious disease research.
In addition to confirming human-viral protein interactions, P-HIPSTer helped researchers obtain a wealth of information about how the virus infects human cells and causes disease, including the role of estrogen-like mediators in regulating Zika virus infection, how hpedoblasts cause cancer, how viruses affect the human genome, and so on.
Researchers say scientists don't know much about the interactions between viral proteins and human proteins, and hope the new map will provide the scientific community with more research resources to help scientists get more biological information. Next, they plan to use P-HIPSTer for more complex pathogens, such as parasites and bacteria, and in the future, they may use the tool to study viruses or pathogens that affect crops or livestock. (Science and Technology Daily)