Journal: bioRxiv
Article Title: Identification of Human Transferrin Receptor as an Entry Co-receptor for Parvovirus B19 Infection of Human Erythroid Progenitor Cells
doi: 10.64898/2026.04.02.715920
Figure Lengend Snippet: (A) Protein diagram. VP1u-APEX2 consists of APEX2 fused to the C-terminus of the unique region of B19V VP1 (VP1u) via a seven-residue glycine-serine linker (GGSGGSG), followed by a Flag tag and a 6 × Histidine (His) tag. APEX2 has a linker-Flag-His tag fused at the C-terminus. (B) Analysis of purified proteins. VP1u-APEX2 and APEX2 proteins were expressed in bacteria and purified. Approximately (∼) 1 µg of each protein was separated by SDS-PAGE, followed by Coomassie blue staining. M, molecular weight marker. (C) Confocal microscopy of VP1u-APEX2 entry. 1 × 10 6 UT7/Epo-S1 cells were incubated with 2 μM VP1u-APEX2 or APEX2 protein at 37°C for 2 h. The cells were then immunostained with α-Flag to visualize internalized proteins under a Leica STED confocal microscope. Scale bar = 10 μm. Nuclei were stained with DAPI (4’,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole). (D) Western blotting of APEX2-biotinylated proteins. 1 × 10 7 UT7/Epo-S1 cells were incubated with 2 μM VP1u-APEX2 or APEX2 protein at 37°C. After 2 h, APEX2-mediated biotinylation was then performed as described in the Materials and Methods and Figure S1 . Biotinylated host proteins were purified with streptavidin-conjugated magnetic beads. The supernatant was collected as the flow-through (FT), and the beads were further washed several times and eluted as the pull-down (PD). Both FT and PD samples were analyzed by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting using Alexa Fluor 680-conjugated streptavidin. (E) Analysis of VP1u-APEX2-biotinylated/associated proteins using quantitative mass spectrometry (qMS). Three independent PD samples prepared from VP1u-APEX2 and APEX2 (control) treated cells were analyzed by on-bead digestion and qMS. MS data were processed and analyzed as described in the Materials and Methods. The bubble plot shows protein enrichment (log 2 fold change) in the VP1u-APEX2 group relative to the APEX control, with color indicating subcellular localization based on Gene Ontology (GO) annotation. TFRC denotes human transferrin receptor 1 (hTfR).
Article Snippet: Purified proteins: Recombinant hTfR ECD protein tagged with a His-tag at the C-terminus (#11020-H07H) and recombinant human ferritin heavy chain 1/FTH1 (#13217-HNAE) were purchased from SinoBiological (Paoli, PA).
Techniques: Residue, FLAG-tag, Purification, Bacteria, SDS Page, Staining, Molecular Weight, Marker, Confocal Microscopy, Incubation, Microscopy, Western Blot, Magnetic Beads, Mass Spectrometry, Control, Protein Enrichment