| Summary: | Viruses have exploited strategies of proteolysis for the purposes of processing viral proteins and manipulating cellular processes to direct synthesis of new virions and subvert host antiviral responses. Many viruses encode proteases within their genome, of which many have been well studied among the family of positive-sense single-stranded RNA picornaviruses. A subset of host proteins have already been identified as targets of picornaviral proteinases; however, the full repertoire of targets is not known. In this thesis, a novel proteomics-based approach termed terminal amine isotopic labeling of substrates (TAILS) was used to conduct a global analysis of protease-generated N-terminal peptides by mass spectrometry and identify novel substrates of the 3C (3Cpro) and 2A (2Apro) proteinases from poliovirus and coxsackievirus type B3 (CVB3). TAILS was performed on HeLa cell extracts subjected to purified poliovirus 3Cpro or CVB3 2Apro, and on mouse HL-1 cardiomyocyte extracts subjected to purified CVB3 3Cpro. A list of high confidence candidate substrates for all three proteinases was generated, which included a peptide corresponding to the known poliovirus 3Cpro substrate polypyrimide tract binding protein at a known cleavage site, thus validating this approach. Furthermore, three identical peptides in both the poliovirus and CVB3 3Cpro list of high confidence substrates were identified, suggesting that cleavage of these substrates may contribute to general strategy of picornaviral infection. A total of seven high confidence substrates were validated as novel targets of 3Cpro in vitro and during virus infection. Moreover, mutations in the TAILS-identified cleavage sites for these candidates blocked cleavage in vitro and during infection. Depletion of these proteins by siRNAs modulated virus infection, suggesting that cleavage of these substrates either promotes or inhibits virus infection. In summary, an in vitro TAILS assay can be utilized to identify novel substrates of viral proteinases that are cleave during infection. Moreover, TAILS can identify common substrates of viral proteinases between different viral species, revealing general strategies of infection utilized by related viruses. Finally, the identification of novel host substrates provides new insights the viral-host interactions mediated by viral proteinases that are required for successful infection. === Medicine, Faculty of === Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Department of === Graduate
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