Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2025, Vol. 56 ›› Issue (8): 3942-3957.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2025.08.032

• Preventive Veterinary Medicine • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Screening and Identification of Host Proteins Interacting with NP of Newcastle Disease Virus

HAN Yin1,2(), XIE Ziwei1,2, YAN Shuke1, XU Fei1,2, CHEN Ruiai1,2,3,4,*()   

  1. 1. College of Veternary Medicine, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
    2. Zhaoqing Branch Center of Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agricultural Science and Technology Co., Ltd., Zhaoqing 526238, China
    3. Zhaoqing Institute of Biological Medicine Co., Ltd., Zhaoqing 526238, China
    4. Zhaoqing Dahuanong Biological Medicine Co., Ltd., Zhaoqing 526238, China
  • Received:2024-10-18 Online:2025-08-23 Published:2025-08-28
  • Contact: CHEN Ruiai E-mail:hanyin928@163.com;chensa727@vip.126.com

Abstract:

Newcastle disease is an acute contact infectious disease caused by Newcastle disease virus (NDV), which is characterized by respiratory and digestive symptoms. The widespread epidemic of NDV has caused huge economic losses to the poultry industry. NP is a nucleocapsid protein of NDV, which plays an important role in viral replication, immune response and cellular autophagy, while the host proteins interacting with NP remains unclear. The study was aim to screen the host proteins interacting with NDV NP and explore the effects of the host proteins on the replication of NDV, as well as to provide a theoretical basis for disease-resistant drug development. The eukaryotic expression plasmid of NDV NP was successfully constructed with the eukaryotic expression vector pXJ40. The host proteins interacting with NDV NP were screened by co-immunoprecipitation, mass spectrometry, GST-pull down, and laser confocal microscopy. The effects of the host proteins on NDV replication were explored by overexpression and knockdown in DF1cells. A total of 211 potential host proteins interacting with NP were screened by mass spectrometry. Enrichment analysis of the differential proteins revealed their possible biological functions and involvement in biological processes. Further detailed analysis of the interaction between HSP70 and NP confirmed the direct interaction of the two proteins and mapped the domain responsible for this binding to the SBD region in HSP70. NDV infection down-regulates HSP70 expression in host cells. Overexpression of HSP70 significantly inhibited viral replication at both the protein and transcriptional levels. However, both knockdown of endogenous HSP70 and use of HSP70 inhibitors significantly promoted NDV replication. This study indicated that the host protein HSP70 interacts with NDV NP and the overexpression of HSP70 could significantly inhibit NDV replication and act as a negative regulator of NDV infection, which provided a new idea for the design of antiviral drug targeting HSP70.

Key words: Newcastle disease virus, NP, HSP70 protein, co-immunoprecipitation

CLC Number: