Human cytomegalovirus interactome analysis identifies degradation hubs, domain associations and viral protein functions

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) extensively modulates host cells, downregulating >900 human proteins during viral replication and degrading >= 133 proteins shortly after infection. The mechanism of degradation of most host proteins remains unresolved, and the functions of many viral proteins are incompletely characterised. We performed a mass spectrometry-based interactome analysis of 169 tagged, stably-expressed canonical strain Merlin HCMV proteins, and two non-canonical HCMV proteins, in infected cells. This identified a network of >3400 virus-host and >150 virus-virus protein interactions, providing insights into functions for multiple viral genes. Domain analysis predicted binding of the viral UL25 protein to SH3 domains of NCK Adaptor Protein-1. Viral interacting proteins were identified for 31/133 degraded host targets. Finally, the uncharacterised, non-canonical ORFL147C protein was found to interact with elements of the mRNA splicing machinery, and a mutational study suggested its importance in viral replication. The interactome data will be important for future studies of herpesvirus infection.