Journal: bioRxiv
Article Title: Herpes simplex virus pUL56 abolishes neuronal activity by removing voltage-gated ion channels from the plasma membrane
doi: 10.64898/2026.04.10.717620
Figure Lengend Snippet: ( A ) Single-step (MOI 5) replication curve of wildtype (WT) and ΔpUL56 HSV-1 in day 14 i3Neurones. Mean ± SD for three independent experiments is shown. ( B ) Schematic of the QTV workflow using day 14 i3Neurones. Mock samples were harvested at 12 hpi for all analyses, and additionally at 3 and 30 hpi for transcriptomics (RNAseq) using Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT). ( C ) Changes in i3Neurone protein abundance at 30 hpi with WT HSV-1. Horizontal axis shows average fold change and vertical axis shows significance (two-sided t-test) for three independent experiments. Proteins are coloured by FDR-corrected significance and viral proteins are outlined in pink. ( D ) Changes in i3Neurone transcript abundance at 30 hpi with WT HSV-1. Horizontal axis shows average fold change and vertical axis shows FDR-adjusted significance for three independent experiments. Significantly altered genes (log 2 fold change ≥ 2 and p ≤ 0.05) are blue and viral transcripts are outlined in pink. ( E ) Immunoblot analysis of day 14 i3Neurones at 16 hpi (MOI 10) with HSV-1 strains KOS, S17 and SC16, or Semliki Forest virus (SFV)4. Changes in KIF1A, cFOS and GOPC are HSV-1 specific, whereas abundance of stathmins (STMN2–4) is altered in all infections. Capsid proteins VP5 (HSV) and CP (SFV4) confirm successful infection and GAPDH is a loading control. ( F ) Gene Ontology (GO) analysis of proteins (top, blue) and transcripts (bottom, green) with significantly changed abundance at 30 hpi in HSV-versus mock-infected i3Neurones. Significant GO molecular function terms are shown as bubbles sized by magnitude of enrichment, with significance (FDR-adjusted p-value) plotted on the horizontal axis and arrows indicating whether the term was enriched amongst the up- or down-regulated gene products. ( G ) Changes in protein (horizontal) versus transcript (vertical) abundance in mock-versus HSV-infected i3Neurones at 30 hpi. Cellular and viral gene products are grey and pink, respectively, with selected cellular gene products highlighted (black). Potential targets of HSV-1 directed proteasomal degradation (larger fold change in protein vs transcript abundance) are to the left of the dotted red line. (H) Normalised abundance traces of selected proteins (top) and transcripts (bottom) across the time course of infection with WT (pink) or ΔpUL56 (blue) HSV-1. Mock-infected samples (M) are shown as 0 hpi. ( I ) Cellular protein abundance changes in day 14 i3Neurones infected (MOI 5) with WT versus ΔpUL56 i3Neurones. Data are plotted as in ( C ), with horizontal axis showing average mock-corrected fold change for three independent experiments.
Article Snippet: Primary and secondary antibody incubations were performed in TBS supplemented with 0.1% TWEEN-20 and 5% (w/v) skim milk powder using the following antibodies: HSV-1 VP5, ( ); SV4 CP, kindly provided by Andres Merits ( ); KIF1A, BD Transduction Laboratories 612094; cFOS, Cell Signalling Technologies 2250T; GOPC, Abcam Ab133472; STMN2, Novus Biologicals NBP1-49461; STMN3, ProteinTech 11311-1-AP; STMN4, ProteinTech 12027-1-AP; GAPDH, GeneTex GTX28245; HSV-1 pUL56, ( ); HA, Cell Signalling Technologies C29F4; Anti-rabbit 800, LI-COR 926-32213; Anti-rabbit 680, LI-COR 926-68023; Anti-mouse 800, LI-COR 926-32210; Anti-mouse 680, LI-COR 926-68020.
Techniques: Transcriptomics, RNA sequencing, Quantitative Proteomics, Western Blot, Virus, Infection, Control