Tiger frog virus can infect zebrafish cells for studying up- or down-regulated genes by proteomics approach.

Tiger frog virus (TFV), a member of the iridovirus family, causes high mortality of cultured tiger frog tadpoles in southern China. To better understand TFV infection and its interaction with host cells, zebrafish embryonic fibroblast (ZF4) cells, a stable polyploid cell line with most clear genetic map, was used for our present study. Our results showed that TFV caused typical lytic plaque forming cytopathic effect (CPE) and that various stages of viral proliferation were observed using electron microscopy and indirect immunofluorescence assay. Two-dimensional electrophoresis also showed that some cellular proteins were differentially expressed in the ZF4 cells infected with TFV. A total of 10 proteins were identified using the matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) technique, including 7 that were up-regulated and 3 that were down-regulated after infection. Among the 10 identified proteins, alterations in Hsp90 and alpha-tubulin expression were further confirmed by Western blot analysis. Furthermore, reorganization of microtubules was also observed in TFV-infected cells and can probably be attributed to the overexpression of translationally controlled tumor protein. The present study is the first attempt to reveal cellular responses to TFV infection by proteomics. The results suggest that the ZF4 cell line could be used as a model to study TFV infection.