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PLOS PATHOGENS

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Selective modulation of cell surface proteins


during vaccinia infection: A resource for
identifying viral immune evasion strategies
Delphine M. Depierreux1☯, Arwen F. Altenburg1☯, Lior Soday2, Alice Fletcher-
Etherington2, Robin Antrobus2, Brian J. Ferguson1, Michael P. Weekes ID2*, Geoffrey
L. Smith ID1*
1 Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2 Cambridge Institute for Medical
a1111111111 Research, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
a1111111111
a1111111111 ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work.
* [email protected] (MPW); [email protected] (GLS)
a1111111111
a1111111111

Abstract
The interaction between immune cells and virus-infected targets involves multiple plasma
OPEN ACCESS membrane (PM) proteins. A systematic study of PM protein modulation by vaccinia virus
Citation: Depierreux DM, Altenburg AF, Soday L, (VACV), the paradigm of host regulation, has the potential to reveal not only novel viral
Fletcher-Etherington A, Antrobus R, Ferguson BJ, immune evasion mechanisms, but also novel factors critical in host immunity. Here, >1000
et al. (2022) Selective modulation of cell surface
PM proteins were quantified throughout VACV infection, revealing selective downregulation
proteins during vaccinia infection: A resource for
identifying viral immune evasion strategies. PLoS of known T and NK cell ligands including HLA-C, downregulation of cytokine receptors
Pathog 18(6): e1010612. https://doi.org/10.1371/ including IFNAR2, IL-6ST and IL-10RB, and rapid inhibition of expression of certain proto-
journal.ppat.1010612 cadherins and ephrins, candidate activating immune ligands. Downregulation of most PM
Editor: Gerd Sutter, Ludwig-Maximilians- proteins occurred via a proteasome-independent mechanism. Upregulated proteins
Universität München, GERMANY included a decoy receptor for TRAIL. Twenty VACV-encoded PM proteins were identified,
Received: December 24, 2021 of which five were not recognised previously as such. Collectively, this dataset constitutes a
Accepted: May 23, 2022 valuable resource for future studies on antiviral immunity, host-pathogen interaction, poxvi-
rus biology, vector-based vaccine design and oncolytic therapy.
Published: June 21, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Depierreux et al. This is an open


access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and Author summary
reproduction in any medium, provided the original
author and source are credited. Vaccinia virus (VACV) is the vaccine used to eradicate smallpox and an excellent model
for studying host-pathogen interactions. Many VACV-mediated immune evasion strate-
Data Availability Statement: The mass
gies are known, however how immune cells recognise VACV-infected cells is incom-
spectrometry proteomics data have been deposited
to the ProteomeXchange Consortium (http://www. pletely understood because of the complexity of surface proteins regulating such
proteomexchange.org/) via the PRIDE partner interactions. Here, a systematic study of proteins on the cell surface at different times dur-
repository with the dataset identifier PXD033407. ing infection with VACV is presented. This shows not only the precise nature and kinetics
Data for all quantified VACV and human proteins of appearance of VACV proteins, but also the selective alteration of cellular surface pro-
are available in S1 Table in which the ‘Plotter’
teins. The latter thereby identified potential novel immune evasion strategies and host
worksheet allows for interactive generation of
temporal profiles. Data for surface protein
proteins regulating immune activation. Comprehensive comparisons with published data-
expression validation by flow cytometry are sets provided further insight into mechanisms used to regulate surface protein expression.
available on FigShare (10.6084/m9.figshare. Such comparisons also identified proteins that are targeted by both VACV and human

PLOS Pathogens | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612 June 21, 2022 1 / 33


PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

19617732 and 10.6084/m9.figshare.19614201.


v1). cytomegalovirus (HCMV), and which are therefore likely to represent host proteins regu-
Funding: This research was funded in part by the lating immune recognition and activation. Collectively, this work provides a valuable
Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship resource for studying viral immune evasion mechanisms and novel host proteins critical
(grant 090315) to GLS and Senior Clinical in host immunity.
Research Fellowship (108070/Z/15/Z) to MPW,
and also by grant MR/M019810/1 from URKI MRC
to GLS and BJF. Additionally, this study was
supported by the Cambridge Biomedical Research
Centre, UK. For the purpose of open access, the Introduction
author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence Vaccinia virus (VACV) is a large, double-stranded (ds)DNA virus and is best known as the
to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising
live vaccine used to eradicate smallpox [1]. Since smallpox eradication in 1980, research with
from this submission. The funders had no role in
study design, data collection and analysis, decision
VACV has continued because it is an excellent model to study host-pathogen interactions.
to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Furthermore, VACV was developed as an expression vector [2,3] with utility as a vaccine
against other infectious diseases [4–6] and as an oncolytic agent [7,8]. To optimise the design
Competing interests: The authors have declared
that no competing interests exist.
of VACV-based vaccines and oncolytic agents, it is important to develop a comprehensive
understanding of the interactions between VACV-infected cells and the host immune system,
and how VACV modulates these interactions. The study of virus-induced changes to cellular
proteins has also led to several advances in understanding of host cell protein function. A
recent example of this was our demonstration that histone deacetylase 4 (HDAC4) is degraded
during VACV infection [9], is needed for the recruitment of STAT2 to the interferon (IFN)-
stimulated response element during type I IFN-induced signalling and restricts the replication
of VACV and herpes simplex virus type 1 [10].
VACV encodes many immunomodulatory proteins that function to evade or suppress the
host immune response to infection [11]. Intracellular immunomodulators may inhibit innate
immune signalling pathways, the activity of IFN-stimulated gene (ISG) products, or block apo-
ptosis [12,13]. Secreted proteins can bind and inhibit cytokines, chemokines, IFNs or comple-
ment factors. Additional immunomodulators function on the cell surface to influence
recognition of the infected cell by the immune system. In general, these have been studied less
extensively than secreted or intracellular proteins. Nonetheless, it was reported that the viral hae-
magglutinin (HA, protein A56) modulates interactions with natural killer (NK) cells [14], and
A40 is a cell surface protein with a type II membrane topology, with limited amino acid similar-
ity to C-type lectins and NK cell receptors [15]. In addition to these integral membrane proteins,
some VACV secreted proteins can also bind to the surface of infected or uninfected cells. Exam-
ples include the type I IFN-binding protein (B18 in VACV strain Western Reserve–WR) that
binds to cell surface glycosaminoglycans [16,17] and the M2 protein that binds to B7.1 and B7.2
to prevent T cell activation [18,19]. The vaccinia complement control protein C3 (VCP) and the
K2 serine protease inhibitor (serpin 3, SPI-3) each bind to A56 [20], and vaccinia epidermal
growth factor (VGF) binds to the epidermal growth factor receptor and promotes cell division
[21] and affects virus spread [22]. Other VACV proteins present on the infected cell surface are
part of the outer envelope of the extracellular enveloped virus (EEV) [23].
In addition to VACV proteins expressed at the cell surface, there have been a few reports of
changes to cellular plasma membrane (PM) proteins during infection. For instance, the abun-
dance of different major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) haplotypes, a major
immune ligand, have been reported to change during infection and this might influence recog-
nition of infected cells by both CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes and NK cells [24–27]. However,
changes in cell surface protein expression during VACV infection have not been addressed
comprehensively or systematically.
This study used plasma membrane profiling (PMP) [28,29] to provide a comprehensive
analysis of temporal and quantitative changes in host and viral proteins at the surface of

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

immortalised human foetal foreskin fibroblasts (HFFF-TERTs) following VACV infection.


Using tandem mass-tag (TMT)-based proteomics of PM-enriched fractions, >1000 PM pro-
teins were quantified, and of these, 142 were downregulated and 113 were upregulated during
infection. Twenty VACV proteins were detected at the cell surface including C8 and F5, which
were not known to be present at the PM. Modulation of the expression levels of PM proteins
indicated several possible novel immune evasion strategies, including selective downregulation
of HLA-C and the IFN-α receptor 2 (IFNAR2) and upregulation of an apoptosis decoy recep-
tor for TRAIL. The use of a proteasome inhibitor and comparison with previous studies by
our group assessing whole cell protein expression during VACV infection [9] and protein sta-
bility [30] in HFFF-TERTs suggested that proteasomal degradation and host protein synthesis
shut-off are not the major mechanisms by which PM proteins are downregulated during
VACV infection, and that most PM proteins are likely upregulated through subcellular trans-
location and/or stabilisation at the PM. Finally, a comparative analysis with a dataset examin-
ing cell surface proteomic changes upon infection of HFFF-TERTs with human
cytomegalovirus (HCMV) [31] identified possible common viral immune evasion strategies.

Results
Quantitative temporal analysis of the plasma membrane proteome during
VACV infection
To measure how VACV infection changes the cell surface proteome, HFFF-TERTs were
mock-treated or infected with VACV WR in biological duplicate. These cells were used previ-
ously in an investigation of the whole cell proteome during VACV infection by our group [9]
and the whole cell lysate (WCL) and PM proteomes during HCMV infection [29], thereby
enabling direct comparisons with these datasets. Additionally, a single mock and an infected
sample were treated with the proteasome inhibitor MG132 at 2 hours post-infection (hpi).
Flow cytometry confirmed that >95% of the cells were infected (S1A and S1B Fig). Multi-
plexed TMT and triple-stage mass spectrometry (MS3) were used to quantify the relative abun-
dance of PM proteins at 1.5, 6, 12 and 18 hpi as described [28]. Briefly, infections were
staggered so that the samples were washed simultaneously to remove excess and unattached
virions. Surface sialic acids were oxidised and biotinylated with aminooxybioin, followed by
quenching of the reaction and cell lysis. Biotinylated glycoproteins were then enriched, dena-
tured and digested. The digested peptides from each sample were labelled with a different tan-
dem mass tag (TMT), pooled and quantified by mass spectrometry (Fig 1A).
Human proteins were filtered for gene ontology (GO) annotations related to PM expres-
sion. Overall, 49 VACV proteins and 1055 human PM proteins were quantified in both experi-
ments (Fig 1B). Mock-infected samples presented negligible variation in the abundance of any
given protein over the course of the experiment (S1C Fig). VACV-infection induced selective
changes in the expression of PM proteins, with the greatest fold-change (FC) occurring mostly
late during infection (Fig 1C and 1D). This was reflected by separate clustering of mock sam-
ples, and samples harvested early (1.5 & 6 hpi) or late (12 & 18 hpi) after VACV infection (Fig
1C). All data are shown in S1 Table, in which the worksheet “Plotter” enables interactive gen-
eration of temporal graphs of the expression of each human or viral proteins quantified.

Selective changes in human cell surface protein expression following VACV


infection
Two sets of criteria were defined to determine which human PM proteins showed altered levels
during VACV infection (Fig 2A and S2A–S2D Table). First, ‘sensitive’ criteria included

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

Fig 1. Quantitative temporal analysis of the plasma membrane proteome during VACV infection. (A) Schematic of the experimental
workflow. HFFF-TERTs were mock-treated or infected with VACV at MOI 5 for the indicated time-points (S1A and S1B Fig). At 2 hpi
MG132 was added to a mock and an infected sample (‘+MG’). Samples were generated in biological duplicate (PMP1, PMP2). (B)
Number of proteins quantified in the PMP replicates. ‘Human PM proteins’ represents the number of proteins annotated with relevant
GO terms (PM, ‘cell surface’ [CS], ‘extracellular’ [XC] and ‘short GO’ [ShG, 4-part term containing ‘integral to membrane’, ‘intrinsic to
membrane’, ‘membrane part’, ‘cell part’ or a 5-part term additionally containing ‘membrane’]). (C) Hierarchical cluster analysis showing
the fold change of all VACV and human proteins quantified in both replicates compared to mock (average 1.5 and 18 h, S1C Fig). Selected
sections are shown enlarged and VACV proteins are indicated in orange. (D) Scatter plots of all VACV and human PM proteins
quantified in both repeats at 6, 12 or 18 hpi. Selected human PM proteins were annotated. P-values were estimated using significance A
with Benjamini-Hochberg correction for multiple hypothesis testing [117].
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612.g001

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

Fig 2. Selective modulation of host proteins at the cell surface during VACV infection. (A) Human host PM modulated according to the
sensitive and stringent criteria (S2A–S2D Table). (B) DAVID functional enrichment of 142 proteins detected in either repeat and
downregulated >2-fold. A background of all quantified human PM proteins was used. Representative terms are shown for each cluster with a
Benjamini-Hochberg-corrected p-value <0.05 (S2E Table). (C) Temporal profiles of selected downregulated proteins, in which the fold-
change for downregulation was in each case significant at p<0.05 (Benjamini-Hochberg-corrected one-way ANOVA, S2A and S2C Table).
For each biological repeat, the sample with the highest quantitative value was set to 1.0, and the other samples were normalised accordingly.
The plots show the mean+SD of the two repeats. (D) Downregulation of EGFR/EPHB4 during VACV infection was confirmed by flow
cytometry at 15 hpi with VACV (MOI 5). Results are representative of 3 independent experiments. (E) Temporal profiles of selected
upregulated proteins, all with p <0.05 (Benjamini-Hochberg-corrected one-way ANOVA, S2B and S2D Table). Data are represented as
mean ± SD (PMP n = 2; WCL [9] n = 3, # WCL n<3).
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612.g002

proteins quantified in either or both PMP replicates showing >2-fold change (FC) at any
time-point during infection. Second, ‘stringent’ criteria included only proteins detected in
both PMP replicates showing >2 FC with a p-value <0.05 (Benjamini-Hochberg corrected

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

one-way ANOVA). Both criteria indicated that VACV infection selectively alters the abun-
dance of a small fraction (~1%) of human PM proteins detected in this study (Fig 2A and
S2A–S2D Table). Sensitive criteria were used for subsequent analyses and proteins identified
by stringent criteria are shown in S2 Table.
Of the 1055 human PM proteins quantified in both PMP replicates, 142 and 113 proteins
were down- or upregulated, respectively (Figs 2A and S2A and S2B Table). The Database for
Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) [32,33] identified six functional
clusters that were enriched within the group of downregulated human PM proteins (Fig 2B
and S2E Table). This included protocadherins and several clusters associated with receptor
tyrosine kinases (RTKs), which contain immunoglobulin domains (growth factor receptor
families), fibronectin type III domains (ephrin family), or a combination of the two (TAM
family) [34]. Temporal profiles provide insight into the kinetics of downregulation from the
cell surface (this dataset) and as determined by WCL proteomics of VACV-infected cells [9]
(Fig 2C). Downregulation of ephrin B4 (EPHB4) and epidermal growth factor receptor
(EGFR) was confirmed by flow cytometry (Fig 2D).
DAVID functional enrichment analysis for the group of upregulated human PM pro-
teins resulted in a single significantly enriched cluster: ‘Protein processing in the endo-
plasmic reticulum (ER)’ (S2F Table). The most highly upregulated proteins included
many ER, Golgi and lysosomal proteins, such as trans-Golgi network integral membrane
protein (TGOLN)2, heat shock protein (HSP)A5, calreticulin (CALR) and ER aminopepti-
dase (ERAP)1 (Fig 2E).
Interestingly, several host surface proteins involved with the cytokine response were modu-
lated during VACV infection. For example, the interleukin-6 receptor subunit β (IL-6ST),
interferon α/β receptor 2 (IFNAR2), mast/stem cell growth factor receptor Kit (KIT) (Fig 2C)
and interleukin-10 receptor subunit β (IL-10RB, S1 Table) were substantially downregulated
from the PM during VACV infection. Conversely, PM expression of several proteins involved
in the suppression of the cytokine response, including CALR, ERAP1 and syndecan-4 (SDC4),
were upregulated (Fig 2E). Overall, PM expression modulation of these proteins may indicate
novel strategies by which VACV manipulates the cytokine environment to enhance immune
evasion, replication or spread.

Selective modulation of cell surface immune ligands during VACV


infection
NK and T cells are essential components of the antiviral immune response. Their activation
status is determined by the integration of inhibitory and activating signals emanating from
receptors engaging with ligands expressed by (infected) target cells. Interestingly, several of
these immune ligands showed altered PM expression during VACV infection.
MHC-I (human leukocyte antigen class I (HLA-I) in humans) molecules are important reg-
ulators of NK and T cells. Due to the polymorphic nature of classical HLA-I (HLA-A, -B, -C),
their peptides may easily be miss-assigned after detection by mass spectrometry. Therefore,
only peptides corresponding uniquely to a single HLA-I type were included in this analysis.
Interestingly, HLA-A and HLA-B were modestly downregulated whilst HLA-C was substan-
tially downregulated (Fig 3A). This selective modulation was observed at both the cell surface
and whole cell level and was further confirmed by flow cytometry in two different cell lines
(Fig 3B and 3C). Given that all HLA-C subtypes are ligands for killer-cell immunoglobulin-
like receptors (KIRs) expressed by NK cells, and less than 50% of the HLA-A/B subtypes can
bind KIRs [35], these data suggest selective modulation of the NK cell response during VACV
infection.

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

Fig 3. Selective downregulation of HLA-C from the PM during VACV infection. (A) Temporal profiles were
generated only using peptides belonging uniquely to each of the indicated HLA-I heavy chains. Data are represented as
mean ± SD (PMP n = 2; WCL [9] n = 3, # WCL n<3). (B-C) Cell surface downregulation of selected proteins during
VACV infection (MOI 5) was confirmed by flow cytometry in HFFF-TERTs (B) or HeLa cells (C) at 15-18hpi. Results
are representative of at least 2 independent experiments.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612.g003

Enhanced PM expression of stress molecules such as NK activating ligands HLA-I polypep-


tide related sequence (MIC)A/B, UL-16-binding proteins (ULBPS) and B7-H6 represents a
conserved cellular response to stress, including viral infection [36–38]. However, the PM
expression level of these proteins remained largely unchanged during VACV infection, which
was confirmed by flow cytometry (Fig 4A). This may represent a new VACV strategy to evade
immune recognition.
Selective modulation of regulators of lymphocyte-mediated apoptosis was observed during
VACV infection. Downregulation of lymphotoxin-β receptor (LTBR) and tumour necrosis
factor receptor superfamily member (TNFRSF) 1A (TNFR1), as well as upregulation of
TNFRSF10D (TRAIL-R4), a decoy receptor for TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand
(TRAIL), may lead to decreased sensitivity to apoptosis (Fig 4B). Upregulation of TNFRSF10D
was confirmed by flow cytometry (Fig 4B). Conversely, upregulation of apoptosis inducer and
NF-κB activator TNFRSF12A (Fn14) (Fig 4B) may sensitise the infected cell to lymphocyte-
induced apoptosis. Expression levels of other surface proteins involved in apoptosis regulation,
including FAS and TNFRSF10A/-B, remained largely unchanged (Figs 4B and S2).
Immune checkpoints are activating and inhibitory pathways that regulate the delicate bal-
ance between lymphocyte activation and maintenance of self-tolerance. During VACV infec-
tion, the levels of inhibitory checkpoint molecules programmed cell death ligand (PD-L)1,
PD-L2 and B7-H3 were stable (Figs 4C and S2). The temporal profile of activating checkpoint
molecule CD40 also remained mostly unchanged (Fig 4C). In contrast, repulsive guidance
molecule B (RGMB), which has both stimulatory and inhibitory functions, was downregulated
from the PM (S2E Fig). Additionally, inducible costimulatory ligand (ICOSLG) was downre-
gulated from the cell surface, which was confirmed by flow cytometry (Fig 4C).

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

Fig 4. Cell surface expression of immune cell ligands is selectively modulated during VACV infection. Temporal profiles showing the cell
surface and whole-cell expression levels of (A) stress ligands for NKG2D receptor, (B) apoptosis regulators, (C) co-inhibitory/stimulatory ligands
and (D) other immune ligands. Data are represented as mean ± SD (PMP n = 2; WCL [9] n = 3, # WCL n<3). Cell surface downregulation of
selected proteins during VACV infection was confirmed by flow cytometry in HeLa cells (stress ligands & TNFRSF10D), HFFF-TERTs (FAS &
PVR) or DOHH2 cells (ICOSLG) at 15–18 hpi. Results are representative of at least two independent experiments.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612.g004

Other noteworthy changes in the surface proteome during VACV infection include the
upregulation of collectin-1 (COLEC12), a ligand for the inhibitory NK receptor paired immu-
noglobulin-like type 2 receptor α (PILRα, S2F Fig). Furthermore, NECTIN-1, a ligand for the

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

CD96 receptor with both inhibitory and stimulatory properties, was substantially downregu-
lated. Other related proteins such as poliovirus receptor (PVR or CD155), NECTIN-2 and
NECTIN-3 remained unchanged, suggesting that NECTIN-1 is targeted selectively by VACV.
These changes may represent previously unrecognised NK cell immunomodulatory strategies
employed by VACV. Conversely, modulation of surface expression levels of activating ligand
vimentin (VIM, S2E Fig), may reflect the host antiviral response and enhance sensitivity to NK
cell killing.
Lymphocytes rely on adhesion molecules to make contact with surrounding cells and deter-
mine whether they are targets to be eliminated. Six such molecules were quantified in the PMP
replicates and showed only moderate downregulation for cadherin (CDH)2 and CDH4 (S2
Fig). Natural cytotoxicity receptor (NCR) ligands and CD47, a ligand for signal regulatory pro-
tein alpha (SIRP-α), remained largely unchanged during VACV infection (S2 Fig). Lastly,
plexins, which are ligands for semaphorins, showed mild downregulation from the cell surface
(S2 Fig).
It is probable that not all receptor-ligand pairs involved in lymphocyte regulation have been
identified. Most NK and T cell ligands display structural similarities and belong to a few pro-
tein families including cadherins, collagen, C-type lectin, TNF, HLA and immunoglobulin
[39] and often these are modulated during viral infection. These characteristics were exploited
to define putative candidate surface proteins with immunomodulatory functions. Host PM
proteins substantially modulated during VACV infection were annotated with InterPro func-
tional domains [40]. Six upregulated and 24 downregulated human PM proteins showed Inter-
Pro domain annotations associated with NK/T cell ligands, which may influence immune
recognition (S3 Table). This included multiple protocadherins, endosialin (CD248), and sev-
eral tyrosine-protein kinase receptors such as AXL, PTPRK, PTPRS and TYRO3 (Fig 5). Inter-
estingly, protocadherins were also downregulated after infection with HCMV [30] and
knockdown of protocadherin FAT1 in target cells led to decreased NK cell degranulation [29].
Additionally, FGFR1 was reported to co-stimulate T cells [41], and targeting of AXL sensitised
lung cancer cells to lymphocyte-mediated cytotoxicity [42]. Taken together, these proteins
modulated during VACV infection may represent putative immune ligands.

Fig 5. Modulation of surface expression of putative immune ligands during VACV infection. Temporal profiles of selected putative
immune ligands modulated during VACV infection (S3 Table). Data are represented as mean ± SD (PMP n = 2; WCL n = 3 [9], #
WCL < n = 3).
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612.g005

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

VACV proteins detected at the plasma membrane


The VACV proteins detected at the PM increased in number and abundance as infection pro-
gressed (Fig 1C and 1D). Given the incomplete annotation for the subcellular location of many
VACV proteins, a filtering strategy was applied to discriminate between VACV proteins that
are likely to be true PM proteins and non-PM contaminants that may have been detected due
to, for example, their high intracellular abundance or disruption of EV virions. The number of
peptides identified for a given protein was compared between PMP and WCL [9] proteomic
datasets. For each human protein quantified in both PMP replicates, a peptide count ratio was
calculated [29]: (peptide counts PMP 1+2) / (peptide counts WCL 1+2+3). More than 90% of
the human proteins that were GO-annotated as non-PM showed a peptide ratio <0.5, whereas
85% of the proteins scoring above 0.5 were defined as human PM proteins (Fig 6A). This illus-
trates that the peptide ratio is a reliable metric to predict if a protein is likely to be expressed at
the cell surface, or if it is a non-PM contaminant.
The peptide ratio of 0.5 was applied to the 73 viral proteins quantified in either PMP repli-
cate, and this identified 20 VACV proteins as high-confidence PM proteins (Fig 6B and
Table 1). Twelve of these are known to be present at the host cell surface (A33, A34, A36, A38,
A40, A43, A56 [HA], B5, B18, C3 [VCP], C11 [VGF-1] and K2) and six are secreted proteins
(A41, B8, B18, B15 [IL-1β-BP], C3 and C11) [43], illustrating the validity of the filtering strat-
egy. Note that some of the secreted proteins are also retained at the cell surface. Five other
VACV proteins were identified with high-confidence as PM proteins, including the structural
proteins A13 and L1 that form part of intracellular mature virus (IMV) surface [44,45] and
F13 that is present on the internal face of the outer membrane of the extracellular enveloped
virus (EEV) [46, 47]. L1 and F13 had been identified on the cell surface following rupture of
the EEV outer membrane [48]. The non-structural proteins C8 and F5 have not been
described to interact with other VACV proteins and were identified as putative novel VACV
PM proteins. F5 was reported to be located near the cell periphery, although has not been dem-
onstrated previously to be exposed extracellularly [49].
VACV protein expression has been categorised into four temporal classes [9,50–54]. The
high-confidence VACV PM proteins cover the four temporal classes, although the majority
are expressed late during infection (temporal profile (Tp) 4, Table 1). Overall, the expression
kinetics of the VACV proteins showed a slight delay in PM expression compared to the whole
cell, which may reflect the time required for protein transport to the cell surface (Fig 6C).
Interestingly, the temporal profiles of some secreted VACV proteins showed a reduction in
abundance at late time-points, consistent with protein secretion (Fig 6C). Notably, the appear-
ance of proteins C3 (VCP), and K2 (SPI-3) at the PM closely matched the kinetics of cell sur-
face A56 (HA) to which C3 and K2 bind [20].

Mechanisms underlying changes in human PM protein expression during


VACV infection
The expression of PM proteins during viral infection can be modulated by several mechanisms
such as proteasomal/lysosomal degradation, arrest of synthesis or protein translocation.
MG132 inhibits proteasomal degradation but also affects lysosomal cathepsins [55]. To iden-
tify which PM proteins are modulated by active degradation, a VACV-infected and a mock
sample were treated with MG132. MG132 was added at 2 hpi to allow the uncoating of VACV
that relies on the proteasome [56–58]. An MG132 rescue ratio (RR) was calculated by compar-
ing the abundance of a given protein during VACV infection ±MG132 with the abundance of
the same protein during mock-treatment ±MG132. Of the 73 proteins downregulated >2-fold
in both replicates at 18 hpi, six (8.2%) showed a RR >1.5 (Fig 7A and 7B and S4A Table).

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

Fig 6. Identification of high-confidence VACV PM proteins. (A) Peptide ratios comparing the peptide count for a given protein in the PMP
vs. WCL [9] for all human proteins quantified in both PMP replicates. ‘PMP only’ = not detected in any of the WCL replicates. ‘PM
annotation’ includes GO terms PM, CS, XC and ShG. (B) Cut-off peptide ratio of 0.5 (dashed line), as determined in panel A, applied to 73
VACV proteins detected in either of the PMP replicates to identify high-confidence VACV PM proteins (Table 1). (C) Temporal profiles of all
known and high-confidence VACV PM and secreted proteins. Data are represented as mean ± SD (PMP n = 2; WCL n = 3, A43: WCL n = 1).
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612.g006

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

Table 1. Details of high-confidence VACV PM proteins (related to Fig 6).


Uniprot Gene name Gene name Protein description / function�� Known location�� Temporal class ��� Functional category
VACV-Cop VACV-WR [9] [9,51]
P01136 C11L VACWR009 C11, vaccinia growth factor, VGF Secreted 1 Host interaction
P24770 B8R VACWR190 B8, IFNγ-binding protein, gp Secreted 1 Host interaction
P24766 A41L VACWR166 A41, chemokine-binding protein, gp Secreted 1 Host interaction
P25213 B19R VACWR200 / B18R B18, IFNα/β-binding protein, gp Secreted & cell 2 Host interaction
surface
P24765 A40R VACWR165 A40, type II membrane, gp PM 2 Host interaction
P26671 A43R VACWR168 A43, gp PM 2 Host interaction
P18384 K2L VACWR033 K2, serine protease inhibitor 3 (SPI-3) Secreted & PM 3 Host interaction
P68619 A36R VACWR159 A36, protein egress and actin PM 3 Virion association (IEV
polymerisation only)
P68638 C3L VACWR025 C3, vaccinia complement control Secreted & cell 3 Host interaction
protein (VCP) surface
P17364 C8L VACWR020 C8 Unknown 3 Unknown
P24761 A34R VACWR157 A34, EEV envelope, gp PM 4 Virion association
(EEV)
Q01227 B5R VACWR187 B5, EEV envelope, gp PM 4 Virion association
(EEV)
P24358 F5L VACWR044 F5, major membrane protein Unknown 4 Unknown
Q01218 A56R VACWR181 A56, haemagglutinin, EEV envelope, gp PM 4 Virion association
(EEV)
P68617 A33R VACWR156 A33, EEV envelope, gp PM 4 Virion association
(EEV)
Q76ZQ4 A13L VACWR132 A13, IMV membrane protein IMV 4 Virion association
(IMV)
P24763 A38L VACWR162 A38, gp PM 4 Host interaction
P25212 B16R � VACWR197 / B15R B15, IL-1β-binding protein Secreted 4 Host interaction
P07612 L1R VACWR088 L1, IMV membrane protein IMV 4 Virion association
(IMV)
P04021 F13L VACWR052 F13, EEV membrane-associated protein EEV 4 Virion association
(EEV)

Gene names from VACV strain Copenhagen (Cop) have L or R to indicate direction of transcription. IEV = intracellular enveloped virus. IMV = intracellular mature
virus. EEV = extracellular enveloped virus. gp = glycoprotein.

Gene non-functional in VACV strain Copenhagen.
��
For a review of VACV protein function and location see [43].
���
Temporal classes 1 and 2 occur before viral DNA replication.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612.t001

EPHB3 and APP also showed a RR >1.5 in the WCL MG132 analysis [9] (S1 Table). NEC-
TIN1, INFAR2 and EPHB2 were not detected in the WCL MG132 dataset. Taken together,
unlike the WCL proteins, cell surface protein downregulation is likely regulated predomi-
nantly through mechanisms other than proteasomal degradation.
Interestingly, addition of MG132 modulated cell surface expression of approximately a
third of the human PM proteins upregulated during VACV infection (Fig 7A and 7C and S4B
Table). In this and previous studies, it was observed that addition of MG132 inhibits expres-
sion of late VACV genes, but not early genes [9,57,58]. Therefore, proteasome-dependent
upregulation of proteins at the cell surface may indicate that a late VACV protein is responsi-
ble for the observed increase in expression. Alternatively, these proteins may normally be
retained inside the cell by a second host protein which is degraded by the proteasome during
VACV infection, resulting in upregulation at the cell surface.

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

Fig 7. Systematic analysis of proteasome-dependent changes in surface protein expression during VACV infection. (A) Identification of
human PM proteins downregulated from the cell surface at 18 hpi (compared to 18 h mock) in both replicates and rescued by addition of
MG132 (>2 FC, rescue ratio (RR) >1.5, p<0.05), or upregulated at the cell surface at 18 hpi (compared to 18 h mock) and diminished by the
addition of MG132 (>2-FC, RR<0.66, p<0.05) (S4 Table). Here, we define the RR = b / a, where a = protein abundance during VACV
infection +MG132 / abundance during infection -MG132. This value was limited to 1 to avoid artificial ratio inflation. b = protein abundance
during mock-treatment +MG132 / abundance during mock -MG132 (see panel B, IFNAR2). P-values were estimated using significance A with
Benjamini-Hochberg correction for multiple hypothesis testing [117]. (B) Relative abundance of selected human proteins downregulated at the
PM at 18 hpi and rescued by addition of MG132. (C) Relative abundance of selected human PM proteins for which upregulation was
prevented by the addition of MG132 at 18hpi. Data are represented as mean ± SD (n = 2) S1 Table.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612.g007

VACV is known to shut-off host protein synthesis [59–63]. Consequently, proteins with a
short half-life may be downregulated from the PM during VACV infection due to natural
turnover. In a previous study, protein turnover in HFFF-TERTs was quantified over 18 h by
pulse (p)SILAC and 730 human PM proteins were identified [30]. The abundance of 12 host
proteins downregulated >2-fold from the cell surface during VACV infection was also shown
to be reduced >2 fold in the pSILAC study (S3 Fig and S4C Table). Taken together, these data
suggest that proteasomal degradation and host protein synthesis shut-off are not the major
mechanisms by which PM proteins are downregulated during VACV infection.
Host PM expression can be modulated during viral infection by degradation or enhanced
production, but also by a translocation mechanism such as secretion, shedding, enhanced
intracellular recycling or intracellular trapping. To identify human PM proteins that are up/
downregulated during VACV infection via a translocation mechanism, protein expression lev-
els in the PMP and WCL datasets were compared. The WCL dataset [9] was filtered for
human proteins quantified in any of the replicates and showing on average >2 FC at any time-
point (2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 18 hpi) compared to 18 h mock sample to determine which proteins are

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

up-/downregulated during VACV infection. Proteins that showed altered surface expression
in this PMP study but were not detected in the WCL study include the upregulated proteins
CLN3, CD68 and TMEM219, and downregulated proteins EPHA8, NECTIN1, PIK3IP1,
CXCL16 and protocadherins PCDHB11 and PCDHGB1.
Eighty-eight point five percent of the proteins downregulated >2-fold from the cell surface
during VACV infection were also quantified in our prior WCL proteomic analysis, represent-
ing a total of 100 proteins. Within this group, about a third were downregulated in both studies
(Fig 8A and S5A and S5B Table). DAVID functional enrichment analysis of these proteins
showed significant enrichment of functional clusters, including ‘Tyrosine-protein kinase’,
‘Protein autophosphorylation’, ‘Cadherin’, ‘Heparin-binding’ and ‘Postsynaptic membrane’
(Fig 8B and S5C Table). This includes the ephrin protein family, IL6-ST and several, but not
all, protocadherins (Figs 2C and 8C). An additional ~20 human PM proteins downregulated
in the PMP dataset showed a downward trend in the WCL but did not meet the cut-off criteria
(e.g. EGFR or protocadherin gamma (PCDHG) A10, Fig 2C). The remainder of the proteins
were downregulated solely at the PM, indicating internalisation without active degradation
(e.g. IFNAR2 and KIT, Fig 2C).
Ninety-four point four percent of the human proteins >2-fold upregulated at the cell sur-
face were also detected in the WCL proteomics, representing 134 proteins. Only three of these
proteins were upregulated at both the cell surface and whole cell level during VACV infection:
apolipoprotein E (APOE), TNFRSF10D and fibrinogen β-chain (FGB, Figs 4B and 8E–8G and
S5D Table). This is suggestive of enhanced protein synthesis, despite host shutoff. However,
most upregulated proteins, including TGOLN2, HSPA5, CALR, ERAP1, SDC4, TNFRSF12A,
COLEC12 and VIM, were only upregulated at the cell surface, indicating translocation to and/
or stabilisation at the surface (Figs 2E,4B and 8F and S5E Table).

Identification of human PM proteins commonly targeted during virus


infections
Host proteins that play an important role in antiviral immunity are often targeted by mul-
tiple viruses. To identify these proteins, the PMP dataset was compared to a published
dataset analysing the cell surface proteome during infection with another dsDNA virus,
HCMV [29,64]. Given the different replicative niche of VACV and HCMV, common tar-
gets of these two viruses are of particular interest. Human PM proteins quantified in either
or both replicates and showing on average >2 FC at any time-point (24, 48, 72 hpi com-
pared to the average of mock samples) were considered as up-/downregulated during
HCMV infection (S6 Table). VACV infection led to a more selective modulation of protein
expression compared to HCMV, but a considerable overlap between PM proteins up- or
downregulated during VACV or HCMV infection was observed (Fig 9A and 9D and S6A
and S6C Table).
Fifty-four percent of the proteins downregulated at the cell surface during VACV infection
were quantified in the HCMV PMP dataset. DAVID analysis of the commonly downregulated
proteins revealed that both viruses target RTKs—EPHB3, EPHA4, EPHA2, EPHB4, ERBB2,
PDGFRA, FLT1, ERBB4, EPHB2 -, molecules with EGF-like domains—THBS2, NID2,
FBLN5, CD248, FBLN1, THBS1, VASN -, and cadherins—PCDHGB5, PCDHGA10,
PCDHGC5, PCDHGC3 (Fig 9B and S6B Table). Other noteworthy proteins downregulated by
both viruses include IL-6ST and ICOSLG, indicating that these proteins may be important in
the antiviral response (Fig 9C).
Fifty-two point eight percent of the proteins upregulated at the PM during VACV infection
were quantified in the HCMV PMP dataset. DAVID functional enrichment of proteins

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

Fig 8. Cell surface-specific regulation of protein expression during VACV infection. (A) Overlap of downregulated
proteins between PMP and WCL according to ‘sensitive’ criteria (S5A and S5B Table). ‘Sensitive’ criteria WCL (n = 3)
[9]: human proteins quantified in any of the replicates and showing on average >2-fold-change at any time-point (2, 4,
6, 8, 12, 18 hpi) compared to 18 h mock sample. (B) DAVID functional enrichment of the 30 proteins commonly
downregulated from the cell surface and at whole-cell levels. A background of all proteins detected in PMP and WCL
proteomics was used. Representative terms from each cluster with a Benjamini-Hochberg-corrected p-value of <0.05
are shown (S5C Table). (C) Temporal profiles of selected host proteins that were commonly downregulated from the
cell surface and at whole-cell level. (D) Temporal profiles of selected human PM proteins that were only
downregulated at the cell surface, but not at whole-cell level (E) Same as panel A using proteins upregulated according
to ‘sensitive’ criteria (S5D Table). (F) Temporal profiles of selected human PM proteins that were commonly
upregulated from the cell surface and at whole-cell level. (G) Temporal profiles of selected human PM proteins that are
only upregulated at the cell surface, but not at whole-cell level. Data are represented as mean ± SD (PMP n = 2; WCL
n = 3 [9], # WCL n<3).
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612.g008

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

Fig 9. HCMV and VACV commonly target a subset of PM proteins. (A) Overlap of proteins downregulated
according to ‘sensitive’ criteria after infection with VACV or HCMV (S6A Table). ‘Sensitive’ criteria HCMV PMP
(n = 2) [29]: human PM- (GO terms PM/CS/XC/ShG) proteins quantified in a single or both replicates and showing on
average >2 FC at any time-point (24, 48, 72 hpi) compared to (average of) mock sample(s). (B) Functional enrichment
within proteins commonly downregulated from cell surface during VACV or HCMV infection (‘sensitive’ criteria). A
background of all proteins detected in at least one replicate of both PMP VACV and PMP HCMV was used. Shown are
representative terms from each cluster with a Benjamini-Hochberg-corrected p-value of <0.05 (S6B Table). (C)
Temporal profiles of selected proteins commonly downregulated from the cell surface after VACV or HCMV infection.
(D-E) As panel A/C, respectively, using proteins upregulated by ‘sensitive’ criteria (S6C Table).
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612.g009

upregulated at the cell surface by both VACV and HCMV infection revealed enrichment of
functional clusters for ‘Protein processing ER’ and ‘Prevents secretion ER’. These clusters likely
relate to ER stress, which is commonly triggered during viral infections due to a substantial
increase in protein production, or present novel evasion strategies [65–67]. Several of the PM
proteins that were strongly upregulated during VACV infection were also upregulated at the
cell surface during HCMV infection, including HSPA5, CALR and ERAP1 (Fig 9E and S6C
Table).

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

Discussion
In this study, quantitative temporal plasma membrane proteomics was used to assess systemat-
ically the impact of VACV infection on host and viral PM protein expression. Altered PM pro-
tein expression may represent a normal response to viral infection, VACV-mediated
suppression of immune responses and/or modulation of the environment to support virus
production and spread.
VACV infection resulted in selective modulation of host PM protein expression. Notably,
substantial downregulation of several members of the RTK and protocadherin families was
observed and these protein families were also downregulated from the PM during HCMV
infection [29]. Several members of the RTK (FGFR1, PDGFRA, KIT, FLT1, AXL, TYRO3) and
protocadherin (PCDHGA10, PCDHGA6, PCDHGB5, PCDHGB7, PCDHGC3) families con-
tain InterPro functional domains often found in immune ligands [39,68], suggesting that they
may act as immune regulators. This hypothesis is supported by previous reports that PM
expression of the protocadherin FAT1 leads to decreased degranulation of NK cells [29] and
that the RTK ephrin B2 leads to T cell co-stimulation [69]. Particularly notable was the down-
regulation of the RTK EGFR, which was also observed after HSV-1 and HCMV infection
[29,70,71]. EGFR downregulation from VACV-infected cells is of particular interest because
VACV also expresses a viral epidermal growth factor (called vaccinia growth factor, VGF, pro-
tein C11) that contributes to virulence [72]. VGF stimulates cells surrounding the infected cell
to proliferate, causing hyperplasia and mitotic bodies characteristic of orthopoxvirus pathol-
ogy [21]. More recently, VGF was also reported to enhance motility of infected cells to pro-
mote viral spread [22]. The removal of EGFR from the surface of VACV-infected cells may
represent a strategy to promote binding of VGF to EGFR on surrounding uninfected cells
thereby stimulating the metabolic activity of these cells to enhance virus replication. Alterna-
tively, the removal of EGFR from the infected cell surface may reflect internalisation of acti-
vated EGFR upon engagement with VGF, followed by degradation rather than recycling to the
PM [73].
PM proteins upregulated during VACV infection included chaperone proteins whose
translocation to the PM is associated with ER stress and activation of the immune system [74].
Some of these proteins are manipulated by viruses to suppress immune responses. For exam-
ple, CALR suppresses IFN-α production and antiviral activity in the context of hepatitis B
virus infection [67], ERAP1 induces cleavage of cytokine receptors [65,66], and syndecan-4
(SDC4) negatively regulates retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I)-mediated signalling during
virus infection [75]. Overall, the increased PM expression of these proteins during VACV
infection may indicate previously unknown strategies by which VACV manipulates the host
response to infection.
VACV is well-known to interfere with cytokine signalling by expressing soluble binding
proteins, or decoy receptors, for IL-1β, TNFα, IL-18, IFN-γ and IFN-α/β [11]. In addition,
IFN signalling is targeted at several levels in the pathway downstream of the receptor [76,77].
The observed downregulation of IFNAR2 (type I IFN receptor) and IL10-RB (a component of
multiple cytokine receptors, including type III IFNs) from the PM, may represent novel
VACV strategies for evasion of the IFN response.
NK and T cells are activated by changes on the surface of the infected cell. There are con-
tested reports that VACV infection leads to the mild downregulation of total HLA-I surface
levels [14, 24–27]. However, the selective downregulation of HLA-C from the cell surface
observed here is consistent with a previous study relying on HLA transfection [27]. HLA-A
and -B represent the majority of cell surface HLA-I [78], which explains why reduction of
HLA-C did not substantially affect the total HLA-I levels detected by flow cytometry. HLA

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

subtypes have a differential impact on the immune response and whilst most HLA-C mole-
cules are KIR ligands, HLA-A and -B mostly interact with T cell receptors. Importantly, KIRs
and HLA polymorphisms are linked to infectious disease outcome [79] and if the selective
modulation of HLA-C is conserved in other orthopoxviruses, such as variola virus, this might
have contributed to pathogenesis of smallpox.
The activating NKG2D ligands and B7-H6 (NKp30 ligand), which are typically upregulated
in response to viral infection or in cancer cells [26,80], were not upregulated during VACV
infection and this may represent a novel strategy by which VACV evades the NK cell response.
In contrast, VIM, a ligand for the activating receptor NKp46, was upregulated at the PM dur-
ing VACV infection, whilst the total cell level remained unchanged. VIM upregulation sensi-
tises mycobacterium tuberculosis-infected cells to NKp46-mediated lysis [81], facilitates
adenovirus type 2 transport [82] and interacts with VACV virions and facilitates their assem-
bly [83]. Taken together, this suggests that translocation of VIM to the cell surface during
VACV infection may be caused by virion transport. The immune system may have evolved a
strategy to detect this through NKp46-mediated recognition of VIM.
Further, several immune checkpoints were selectively modulated during VACV infection.
PD-L1 was not affected during VACV infection, which is in contrast with HCMV-induced
up-regulation of PD-L1 [29]. Downregulation of the costimulatory molecule ICOSLG poten-
tially represents a novel mechanism by which VACV modulates NK and T cells [84–87]. Addi-
tionally, RGMB downregulation may interfere with T cell costimulatory function [88] or affect
co-inhibitory pathways [89]. The impact of modulation of these proteins on the immune
response remains to be determined.
More VACV proteins were detected at the PM than had been described hitherto, and a fil-
tering strategy was used to distinguish likely true viral PM proteins from those that might rep-
resent ‘overspill’ from an abundant intracellular pool. This process identified 5 possible new
PM proteins: IMV envelope proteins A13 and L1 [44,45], the EEV outer membrane protein
F13 [46] and non-structural proteins C8 and F5. L1, A13 and F13 might either be expressed at
the PM or alternatively, their detection there might result from interactions with other pro-
teins. For example, the presence of F13 might reflect its interaction with B5 and A56 [90,91].
C8 and F5 are not present in IMV particles [92–94] and are not known to interact with other
VACV proteins [95]. F5 has a transmembrane domain and is expressed at the periphery of the
infected cell, in regions in contact with neighbouring cells [49]. The subcellular localisation of
C8 is unknown, but it also contains a hydrophobic domain that might function as either a sig-
nal peptide or transmembrane domain. Overall, these findings justify further study of the roles
of C8 and F5 during VACV infection, particularly since non-structural PM proteins may have
additional roles in immune regulation.
Systematic comparison of the PMP dataset with various other datasets gave insight into
mechanisms used to regulate cell surface protein expression during VACV infection. Only six
downregulated PM proteins were rescued by addition of MG132 (8.2%), which contrasts with
the WCL proteomics where 69% of the proteins were rescued by MG132 [9]. Nevertheless,
most of the proteins downregulated from the PM were also downregulated, or showed a down-
ward trend, at the whole-cell level. A combination of VACV-induced host shut-off and high
protein turnover may explain the downregulation of a few proteins. However, most downregu-
lated human PM proteins are likely degraded through non-proteasomal mechanisms, for
example, lysosomal degradation. The remainder of the proteins were downregulated specifi-
cally from the cell surface, and not at the whole-cell level, likely indicating internalisation and/
or retention in intracellular compartments without active protein degradation.
Proteins from the same family were not always regulated by the same mechanism. For
example, the downregulation of PM ephrin B2 and B3, but not other ephrins, was prevented

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

by addition of MG132. Additionally, most protocadherins were downregulated in both PMP


and WCL experiments, however, protocadherin-γ A10 and C3 did not show a clear downregu-
lation at whole-cell level. Furthermore, protocadherin-γ B4 downregulation may be the result
of a high protein turnover in combination with host shut-off by VACV. This may indicate that
VACV has developed several mechanisms to modulate specific members of a protein family,
which may have particularly important functions as novel immune ligands.
Strikingly, even though HCMV and VACV encode a similar number of genes, VACV mod-
ulates the abundance of fewer proteins compared to HCMV. Similar observations were made
after comparing WCL datasets of VACV or HCMV infection [9]. The greater alteration of
host protein abundance by HCMV, may reflect the longer and more complex HCMV infec-
tious cycle including the ability to enter and exit the nucleus and establish latency. Nonethe-
less, there is considerable overlap between proteins targeted by both viruses. Targeting of the
whole protocadherin family by multiple viruses may indicate that these proteins represent pre-
viously unknown immune ligands.
Fifty-eight percent of proteins quantified in both replicates PMP1 and PMP2 were deter-
mined to be of PM origin based on Gene Ontology annotation. The remainder of the proteins
are likely to be a mixture of: (a) non-PM contaminants. We find that when fractionating pep-
tide samples in order to perform in-depth analysis of PM proteins, the percentage of proteins
annotated as having a PM origin is somewhat reduced in comparison to unfractionated sam-
ples, which typically exhibit 70–90% purity [28,96]. The increased identification of non-PM
contaminants seen following high resolution fractionation suggests that contaminants form a
minor part of the total protein content and highlights the efficiency of PM protein enrichment.
Some of these contaminants might include proteins endogenously biotinylated at low level
such as histones [97]. (b) Genuine PM proteins that have not yet been annotated as such. (c)
Proteins that interact with high affinity with PM proteins yet do not actually have extracellular
domains. Previously we found that the fraction of peptides that have been directly biotinylated
(glycopeptides eluted from streptavidin beads using PNGaseF) is generally of very high purity
[96]. This, in addition to data demonstrating the membrane impermeability of both ami-
nooxy-biotin and the oxidation reagent sodium periodate [98] suggests that non-PM proteins
are nevertheless infrequently labelled or enriched.
It is difficult to know how many PM proteins are potentially ‘missing’ from the dataset,
since the complete proteome of human fibroblasts is unknown. Possibly the best ways to esti-
mate this number are (a) by comparison to previous PM datasets from human fibroblasts. In
our prior analysis of the PM proteome of HFFFs during infection with HCMV, up to 1184 PM
proteins were quantified [29], similar to the 1164–1215 proteins quantified in the present
study. Of note, given the considerable technological improvements in the present study, both
in terms of the method used for peptide fractionation and in terms of the sensitivity of the
mass spectrometer (Orbitrap Fusion Lumos versus Orbitrap Elite), the relatively modest
increase in the number of quantified PM proteins may suggest that ~1,200 PM proteins is
indeed the limit of detection for the HFFF PM proteome. (b) By comparison to our data from
whole cell lysate proteomic analysis of HFFF-TERTs infected with VACV [9]. By adding Gene
Ontology annotations to this whole cell data, an estimate of the maximum possible number of
PM proteins can be obtained, which is 1692. However, it is unclear how many of these proteins
are actually expressed at the PM. Furthermore, some may be expressed at an insufficient level
to enable quantification, even by the sensitive mass spectrometry methods employed. Addi-
tionally, some may have small ectodomains rendering detection by our strategy unfeasible.
The PMP technique detects changes in expression levels, rather than modifications to pro-
teins. Therefore, immune evasion strategies involving masking, interference with receptor-
ligand binding and/or molecular mimicry may not be identified using this approach.

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

Furthermore, the use of HFFF-TERTs–allowing for direct comparison with previously pub-
lished data with the same cell type [9, 29, 30, 64]–limited the detection of immune ligands that
are more commonly found on professional antigen presenting cells. Nonetheless, a number of
potentially novel immunomodulatory strategies by VACV were identified. Overall, the PMP
dataset represents a valuable resource providing new research avenues informing on antiviral
immune responses and viral immune evasion strategies, vaccine vector design and oncolytic
virus therapy.

Materials & methods


Cell lines
Primary HFFF immortalised with human telomerase (HFFF-TERTs) [99] were grown in Dul-
becco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM; Gibco, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Lutterworth, UK)
supplemented with 10% foetal bovine serum (v/v; Seralab, London, UK) and 1% penicillin/
streptomycin (p/s; Gibco, Thermo Fischer, UK). BSC-1 (African green monkey cell line,
ATCC CCL-26) were grown in DMEM supplemented with 10% filtrated bovine serum (FBS;
Pan Biotech UK Limited, Dorset, UK) and 1% P/S. HeLa cells (human cervical ATCC CCL-2)
and RK13 (Rabbit kidney cells, ATCC CCL37) were grown in Minimum Essential Medium
(MEM; Gibco, Thermo Fischer, Lutterworth, UK) supplemented as described above for BSC-1
cells. Non-Hodgkin’s B cell line DOHH2 (kind gift from Dr Daniel Hodson) was grown in
Roswell Park Memorial Institute (RPMI)-1640 medium (Gibco, Thermo Fischer, Lutterworth,
UK) with 10% FBS and 1% p/s. All cell lines were maintained at 37˚C in 5% CO2. Cells were
routinely checked as mycoplasma negative (MycoAlert, Lonza, UK).

Vaccinia virus
VACV strain Western Reserve (WR) stocks were produced by infection of RK13 cells. Virus
particles were released from cells by three freeze-thaw cycles and two rounds of 20 strokes of a
Dounce homogenizer. Cell-free viruses were resuspended in 10 mM Tris HCl pH 9.0 and puri-
fied by sedimentation through a 36% (w/v) sucrose cushion twice (Fisher Chemical, Thermo
Fisher Scientific). Purified viruses were resuspended in PBS, titrated in BSC-1 cells by plaque
assay and stored at -80˚C.

Virus infections and MG132 treatment


Immediately before infection, the culture medium on 15 cm2 dishes with 4–6.5 × 106
HFFF-TERTs was replaced with infection medium (DMEM supplemented with 2% FBS and
1% p/s). Cells were mock-treated or infected at MOI 5 with VACV in 6 ml infection medium.
After 90 min adsorption at 37˚C, 15 ml of infection medium was added, and samples were
incubated at 37˚C until harvesting. For samples treated with the proteasome inhibitor MG132,
0.5 μl/ml medium (v/v; Merck, Kenilworth, U.S.A.) of 20 mM MG132 was added per flask at 2
hpi. Infections were staggered to allow for simultaneous harvesting of the indicated time-
points.

Plasma membrane profiling and TMT labelling


Plasma membrane protein labelling was performed as described [29]. Briefly, cell surface sialic
acid residues were oxidised and biotinylated using 1 mM sodium periodate (Thermo Scien-
tific), 100 mM aminooxy-biotin (Biotium Inc., Fremont, U.S.A.) in dry DMSO and 10 mM
aniline (Sigma-Aldrich, Merck, Dorset, U.K.) in PBS pH 6.7 (Sigma-Aldrich). After 30 min at
4˚C, the reaction was stopped by addition of glycerol (Sigma-Aldrich) at a final concentration

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PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

of 1 mM. Cells were harvested into 1.6% Triton X-100 (Fisher Scientific), 150 mM NaCl
(Sigma-Aldrich), 5 mM iodoacetamide (Sigma-Aldrich) in 10 mM Tris-HCl pH 7.6 (Sigma-
Aldrich) supplemented with protease inhibitor tablets (Roche, Merck). Biotinylated glycopro-
teins were enriched with high-affinity streptavidin agarose beads (Pierce) and washed exten-
sively. Captured protein were denatured with SDS and urea, reduced with DTT, alkylated with
iodoacetamide (IAA, Sigma) and digested on-bead with trypsin (Promega) in 200 mM HEPES
(4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-1piperazineethanesulfonic acid) pH 8.5 for 3 h. The digested peptides
were eluted, and each sample labelled with 56 μg of a unique TMT reagent (Thermo Fisher Sci-
entific) in a final acetonitrile concentration of 30% (v/v) for 1 h at room temperature. Samples
were labelled as follows. For replicates PMP1 and PMP2: TMT 126 (WT VACV 90 min), TMT
127N (WT VACV 6 h), TMT 127C (WT VACV 12 h), TMT 128N (WT VACV 18 h), TMT
128C (Mock 18 h), TMT 130N (WT VACV + MG132 18 h), TMT 130C (Mock + MG132 18
h), TMT11-131C (Mock 90 min). For replicate PMP3: TMT 127C (WT VACV 18h), TMT11-
131C (Mock). The reaction was quenched with hydroxylamine to a final concentration of 0.5%
(v/v). TMT labelled samples were combined at equal ratio, vacuum-centrifuged and subjected
to C18 solid-phase extraction (Sep-Pak, Waters).

HpRP Fractionation and LC-MS3


An unfractionated single-shot sample was analysed to ensure similar peptide loading across
each TMT channel. The remaining TMT-labelled tryptic peptide samples were subjected to
HpRP fractionation, as described [30] except that the samples were prepared as a single-set of
6 fractions. The fractions were dried and resuspended in 10 μl MS solvent (4% MeCN/5% for-
mic acid) prior to LC-MS3. Data from the single-shot experiment was analysed with data from
the corresponding fractions to increase the overall number of peptides quantified. Mass spec-
trometry data was acquired using an Orbitrap Lumos (Thermo Fisher Scientific, San Jose,
CA). An Ultimate 3000 RSLC nano UHPLC equipped with a 300 μm ID x 5 mm Acclaim Pep-
Map μ-Precolumn (Thermo Fisher Scientific) and a 75 μm ID x 50 cm 2.1 μm particle Acclaim
PepMap RSLC analytical column was used. Loading solvent was 0.1% FA, analytical solvent A:
0.1% FA and B: 80% MeCN + 0.1% FA. All separations were carried out at 40˚C. Samples were
loaded at 5 μL/min for 5 min in loading solvent before beginning the analytical gradient. The
following gradient was used: 3–7% B over 3 min, 7–37% B over 173 min, followed by a 4-min
wash at 95% B and equilibration at 3% B for 15 min. Each analysis used a MultiNotch
MS3-based TMT method [100,101]. The following settings were used: MS1: 380–1500 Th,
120,000 Resolution, 2 × 105 automatic gain control (AGC) target, 50 ms maximum injection
time. MS2: Quadrupole isolation at an isolation width of m/z 0.7, CID fragmentation (normal-
ised collision energy (NCE) 35) with ion trap scanning in turbo mode from m/z 120, 1.5 x 104
AGC target, 120 ms maximum injection time. MS3: In Synchronous Precursor Selection mode
the top 10 MS2 ions were selected for HCD fragmentation (NCE 65) and scanned in the Orbi-
trap at 60,000 resolution with an AGC target of 1 × 105 and a maximum accumulation time of
150 ms. Ions were not accumulated for all parallelisable time. The entire MS/MS/MS cycle had
a target time of 3 s. Dynamic exclusion was set to +/- 10 ppm for 70 s. MS2 fragmentation was
trigged on precursors 5 × 103 counts and above.

Protein quantification and data processing


Mass spectra were processed as described in [9] using MassPike, a sequest-based software pipe-
line, through a collaborative arrangement with Professor Steven Gygi’s laboratory (Harvard
Medical School). A combined database was constructed from (i) the human UniProt database
(26th January 2017), (ii) the VACV strain WR UniProt database (23rd February 2017), (iii)

PLOS Pathogens | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612 June 21, 2022 21 / 33


PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

common contaminants such as porcine trypsin. The combined database was concatenated
with a reverse database composed of all protein sequences in reversed order. Searches were
performed using a 20 ppm precursor ion tolerance, product ion tolerance was set to 0.03 Th.
TMT tags on lysine residues and peptide N termini (229.162932 Da) and carbamidomethyla-
tion of cysteine residues (57.02146 Da) were set as static modifications, while oxidation of
methionine residues (15.99492 Da) was set as a variable modification. To control the fraction
of erroneous protein identifications, a target-decoy strategy was employed [102,103]. Peptide
spectral matches (PSMs) were filtered to an initial peptide-level false discovery rate (FDR) of
1% with subsequent filtering to attain a final protein-level FDR of 1% [104,105]. PSM filtering
was performed using a linear discriminant analysis, as described [106]. This distinguishes cor-
rect from incorrect peptide IDs in a manner analogous to the widely used Percolator algorithm
[107], though employing a distinct machine learning algorithm. The following parameters
were considered: XCorr, DCn, missed cleavages, peptide length, charge state, and precursor
mass accuracy. Protein assembly was guided by principles of parsimony to produce the small-
est set of proteins necessary to account for all observed peptides [106]. Proteins were quanti-
fied by summing TMT reporter ion counts across all matching peptide-spectral matches using
“MassPike,” as described [100, 101]. A minimum one unique or shared peptide per protein
was used for quantitation. Briefly, a 0.003 Th window around the theoretical m/z of each
reporter ion (126, 127n, 127c, 128n, 128c, 129n, 129c, 130n, 130c, 131n, 131c) was scanned for
ions, and the maximum intensity nearest to the theoretical m/z was used. The primary deter-
minant of quantitation quality is the number of TMT reporter ions detected in each MS3 spec-
trum, which is directly proportional to the signal-to-noise (S:N) ratio observed for each ion
[108]. Conservatively, every individual peptide used for quantitation was required to contrib-
ute sufficient TMT reporter ions (minimum of 1375 per spectrum) so that each on its own
could be expected to provide a representative picture of relative protein abundance [100].
Additionally, an isolation specificity filter was employed to minimize peptide co-isolation
[109]. Peptide-spectral matches with poor quality MS3 spectra (more than 9 TMT channels
missing and/or a combined S:N ratio of less than 275 across all TMT reporter ions) or no MS3
spectra at all were excluded from quantitation. Peptides meeting the stated criteria for reliable
quantitation were then summed by parent protein, in effect weighting the contributions of
individual peptides to the total protein signal based on their individual TMT reporter ion
yields.
Protein quantitation values were exported for further analysis in MS Excel. For protein
quantitation, reverse and contaminant proteins were removed, then each reporter ion
channel was summed across all quantified proteins and normalised assuming equal pro-
tein loading across all channels. Fractional TMT signals (i.e., reporting the fraction of
maximal signal observed for each protein in each TMT channel, rather than the absolute
normalised signal intensity) was used for further analysis and to display in figures. This
effectively corrected for differences in the numbers of peptides detected per protein. For
all proteins quantified in the PMP screens, normalized S:N ratio values are presented in S1
Table (‘Data original’ (PMP1 & 2) & ‘repeat 3 18h’ (PMP3) worksheets). For PMP1 & 2,
peptide sequences initially assigned to HLA-A, -B or -C were manually compared to refer-
ence sequences of classical HLA-I expressed by HFFF-TERTs (HLA-A11:01, -A24:02,
-B35:02, -B40:02, -C02:02, and -C04:01) [110]. Only the peptides matching uniquely to the
reference sequence of a single subtype (-A, -B, -C) were included. The summed S:N values
of these peptides was used for the relative abundance of HLA-A, HLA-B or HLA-C and are
available in S1 Table (‘Data’ worksheet).

PLOS Pathogens | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612 June 21, 2022 22 / 33


PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

Validation of infection and modulation of host protein expression levels by


flow cytometry
In parallel with infections for PMP, 10 cm2 dishes with ~1x106 cells were mock-treated or
infected with VACV at MOI 5. At 15.5 hpi, cells were harvested using trypsin-EDTA (Gibco)
and fixed and permeabilised using Fixation/Permeabilization Solution Kit according to the
manufacturer’s instructions (BD Biosciences, San Jose, U.S.A.). Cells were stained with a
mouse anti-D8 monoclonal antibody AB1.1 [111] followed by PE-conjugated goat anti-mouse
IgG (BioLegend, San Diego, U.S.A.). To assess human PM protein expression levels,
HFFF-TERTs or HeLa cells were mock-treated or infected with VACV at MOI 5 in DMEM
2% FCS, 1% p/s. Cells were harvested at 14–16 hpi cells using accutase solution as per the
manufacturer’s instructions (Sigma-Aldrich). ICOSLG surface expression could not be
detected by flow cytometry on HFFF-TERTs, therefore, DOHH2 cells were infected at MOI 50
with VACV in RPMI-1640 with p/s. At 1 hpi, RPMI-1640 supplemented with 2% FBS (v/v)
and 1% p/s was added to resuspend cells at 500,000 cells / 100 μl. All validation of PM protein
expression was performed with 2–2.5x105 cells / well, stained with Zombie NIR/Violet Fixable
Viability Kit (Biolegend) in combination with an antibody against HLA-I (W6/32, kindly pro-
vided by Dr L.H. Boyle), MICA (2C10, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA, USA),
EPHB4 (rea923, Miltenyi Biotech, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany), CD95 (DX2, Miltenyi Bio-
tech), EGFR (528, Santa Cruz), HLA-B/C (4E, kindly provided by Dr L.H. Boyle), HLA-C/E
(DT9, kindly provided by Dr L.H. Boyle), ULBP3 (166510, R&D systems), B7-H6 (875001,
R&D systems, Minneapolis, U.S.A), ULBP-2/5/6 (65903, R&D systems), Plexin-B1 (rea728,
Miltenyi Biotech), MICB (236511, R&D systems), trail-R4 (104918, R&D systems), APC-con-
jugated ICOSLG Monoclonal Antibody (MIH12), isotype mouse Igg2b (Santa Cruz), isotype
mouse IgG2a (Santa Cruz) isotype mouse IgG1 (Santa Cruz), Mouse IgG1 kappa Isotype Con-
trol (P3.6.2.8.1) conjugated with APC (eBioscience–part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, San
Diego, CA, USA). Samples stained with unconjugated primary antibodies were subsequently
probed with PE-conjugated Goat anti-mouse IgG (BioLegend). Cells were fixed using Fixa-
tion/Permeabilization Solution Kit according to the manufacturer’s instructions (BD Biosci-
ences). All samples were analysed by flow cytometry using the Invitrogen Attune NxT and
FlowJo software.

Data analysis and bioinformatics


Analyses were performed using original python code using NumPy [112], pandas [113], Mat-
plotlib [114], SciPy.stats [115] and sklearn.metrics [116] packages. To describe human PM
proteins in this study, host proteins were filtered for relevant gene ontology (GO) annotations
indicative of PM location; PM, ‘cell surface’ [CS], ‘extracellular’ [XC] and ‘short GO’ [ShG,
4-part term containing ‘integral to membrane’, ‘intrinsic to membrane’, ‘membrane part’, ‘cell
part’ or a 5-part term additionally containing ‘membrane’]. Two sets of criteria were defined
to determine which human PM proteins showed modulated expression levels during VACV
infection. First, ‘sensitive’ criteria included proteins quantified in either or both PMP replicates
showing >2x FC at any time-point during infection. Second, ‘stringent’ criteria limited the
false discovery rate further and included proteins detected in both PMP replicates showing
>2x FC with a p-value <0.05 (Benjamini-Hochberg corrected one-way ANOVA). To include
all biologically relevant proteins, ‘sensitive’ criteria were used for subsequent analyses. A hier-
archical clustering analysis based on uncentered Pearson correlation was performed on the FC
with Cluster 3.0 (Stanford University). To avoid skewing the data with outliers, the FC was
limited to 50 in either direction. A heatmap was visualised using Java TreeView (Fig 1C). Vol-
cano plots in Fig 1D do not show VACV protein H7 because there was no quantitative value

PLOS Pathogens | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612 June 21, 2022 23 / 33


PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

available in the mock sample. Scale of the x-axis of these plots was limited from -7 to 7, which
excluded VACV proteins C6 and RPO7 from this graph (Figs 1D and S1D). These two pro-
teins were considered contaminants based on their function and subcellular localisation. Path-
way enrichment analyses were performed using DAVID version 6.8 [32,33]. Indicated
proteins were searched against a background of all human proteins quantified using default
settings. A representative term was selected from each annotation cluster with a Benjamini-
corrected p-value <0.05. Figures show the selected term with corresponding fold enrichment
and log10 transformation of the Benjamini-corrected p-value. InterPro domain annotations
[68] were added to proteins modulated according to ‘sensitive’ criteria (S3 Table). Putative
immune ligands were defined by domain annotations cadherin, collagen, HLA, C-type lectin,
immunoglobulin, Ig, TNF or butyrophylin.

Statistical analysis
Figs 1D and 7A and S1D: p-values were estimated using significance A with Benjamini-Hoch-
berg correction for multiple hypothesis testing [117]. For proteins quantified in both repli-
cates, a one-way ANOVA was used to estimate p-values for FC during the infection time-
course. Per replicate, the average value of mock 1.5 & 18 hpi was used as a control. P-values
were corrected for multiple hypothesis testing using the Benjamini-Hochberg method. A cor-
rected p-value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. S1E Fig: the correlation
between PMP biological replicates was determined by linear regression after plotting the log2
fold-change (VACV 18hpi / mock).

Supporting information
S1 Fig. Technical details of the proteomic plasma membrane profiling experiments.
Related to Fig 1. (A-B) HFFF-TERTs were mock-treated or infected with VACV at MOI 5 in
parallel with infections for PMP. At 15.5 hpi samples were fixed and stained for the late VACV
protein D8 to assess infection levels. (A) Representative gating strategy of VACV-infected cells
stained with anti-D8 followed by anti-mouse-PE or with the secondary antibody only (fluores-
cence minus one, FMO) as a control. Viable cells and single cells were gated followed by selec-
tion of D8-positive cells. (B) D8 levels in mock-treated or VACV-infected cells for each of the
two biological repeats. (C) Correlation of protein abundance (signal: noise, S: N) of mock-
treated samples at 1.5 h and 18 h per replicate. A single human protein was excluded from
PMP2 because the abundance in mock samples was ‘0’. (D) Fold-change of VACV and human
PM proteins quantified in both repeats. Scale of the x-axis was not limited (as in Fig 1D) to
include VACV proteins C6 and RPO7, which are considered outliers based on their function
and subcellular localisation. (E) Correlation of the fold-change of VACV and human PM pro-
teins quantified at 18 hpi in PMP1, PMP2 or a third biological repeat PMP3 performed at 18h
post infection for further validation of results.
(TIF)
S2 Fig. Cell surface expression of NK/T cell ligands during VACV infection. Related to Fig
4. Temporal profiles of known NK/T cell ligands. (A) Adhesion molecules. (B) Plexins. (C)
Natural cytotoxicity triggering receptor (NCR) ligands. (D) Apoptosis regulators. (E) Co-
inhibitory/stimulatory molecules. (F) Other. Data are represented as mean ± SD (PMP n = 2, $
PMP n = 1; WCL [9] n = 3, # WCL < n = 3). (B) Downregulation of plexin B1 during VACV
infection was confirmed by flow cytometry in HeLa cells at 15 hpi with VACV (MOI 5).
Results are representative of at least 2 independent experiments.
(TIF)

PLOS Pathogens | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612 June 21, 2022 24 / 33


PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

S3 Fig. Downregulation of human PM proteins due to high protein turnover. (A) Identifi-
cation of human PM proteins >2-fold downregulated at 18 hpi after VACV infection (com-
pared to 18 h mock) and for which the protein abundance decreased >2-fold in 18 h was
determined in a previous pulse (p)SILAC screen in mock-treated HFFF-TERTs [30]. (B) Tem-
poral profile of selected host proteins downregulated from the cell surface during VACV infec-
tion and which have a short half-life. Data are represented as mean ± SD (PMP n = 2; pSILAC
n = 1 [30]).
(TIF)
S1 Table. Interactive spreadsheet of all data in the manuscript. Related to Figs 2–9 & S2.
The ‘Plotter’ worksheet enables the generation of graphs for all human and viral proteins quan-
tified. The ‘Data original’ (PMP1 & 2) and ‘replicate 3 18h’ (PMP3) worksheets contain mini-
mally annotated protein data where the raw data has been modified by formatting and
normalisation. The ‘Data’ worksheet the HLA-A, -B, -C data is based only on peptides
uniquely attributed to these three HLA subtypes. The spreadsheets include data obtained in
previously performed WCL proteomics [9].
(XLSX)
S2 Table. Plasma membrane proteins modulated during VACV infection. Related to Fig 2.
(A-D) Human PM proteins (A/C) downregulated or (B/D) upregulated according to (A-B)
‘sensitive’ or (C-D) ‘stringent’ criteria. (E-F) DAVID functional enrichment analysis of pro-
teins shown in (A) or (B), respectively, compared to all quantified human PM proteins.
(XLSX)
S3 Table. Discovery of putative immune ligands using InterPro domain annotation.
Related to Fig 5. InterPro functional domain annotation of proteins (A) downregulated or (B)
upregulated according to ‘sensitive’ criteria.
(XLSX)
S4 Table. Systematic analysis of mechanism underlying protein modulation during VACV
infection. Related to Figs 7 and S3. (A) Human PM proteins quantified in both repeats and on
average >2-fold downregulated compared to 18 h mock, in combination with p-value <0.05
and RR >1.5. (B) Human PM proteins quantified in both repeats and on average >2-fold
upregulated compared to 18 h mock, in combination with p-value <0.05 and RR <0.66. (C)
Human PM proteins quantified in both repeats and on average >2-fold downregulated com-
pared to 18 h mock, in combination with p-value <0.05 and >2-fold pSILAC turnover rate in
18 h [30]. P-values on the fold-change at 18 hpi was estimated using the method of significance
A and corrected for multiple hypothesis testing [117].
(XLSX)
S5 Table. Comparison of protein expression at whole cell level and at the plasma mem-
brane during VACV infection. Related to Fig 8. (A) Human PM proteins downregulated in
both PMP and WCL experiments [9] using ‘sensitive’ criteria. (B) Human PM proteins down-
regulated in PMP but not WCL using ‘sensitive’ criteria. (C) DAVID functional enrichment
analysis of proteins shown in (A), compared to all human PM proteins quantified in at least
one replicate of PMP and WCL. (D) Human PM proteins upregulated in both PMP and WCL
using ‘sensitive’ criteria. (E) Human PM proteins upregulated in PMP but not WCL using
‘sensitive’ criteria.
(XLSX)
S6 Table. Human PM protein regulation by VACV and HCMV. Related to Fig 9. (A/C) All
human PM proteins (A) downregulated or (C) upregulated >2-fold by both VACV and

PLOS Pathogens | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010612 June 21, 2022 25 / 33


PLOS PATHOGENS Modulation of cell surface proteins during vaccinia infection

HCMV [29] according to ‘sensitive’ criteria. (B/D) DAVID functional enrichment of proteins
shown in (A) and (C), respectively, compared to all proteins quantified in both VACV and
HCMV PMP screens.
(XLSX)

Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the Flow Cytometry core facility of the School of Biological Sciences,
University of Cambridge for their technical assistance. The authors thank Dr Louise Boyle for
HLA antibodies and Dr Daniel Hodson for DOHH2 cells. The authors acknowledge Henrietta
Lacks for the HeLa cells. Additionally, this study was supported by the Cambridge Biomedical
Research Centre, UK. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public
copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.

Author Contributions
Conceptualization: Delphine M. Depierreux, Arwen F. Altenburg, Michael P. Weekes,
Geoffrey L. Smith.
Data curation: Delphine M. Depierreux, Arwen F. Altenburg, Lior Soday, Alice Fletcher-
Etherington.
Formal analysis: Delphine M. Depierreux, Arwen F. Altenburg, Lior Soday, Alice Fletcher-
Etherington.
Funding acquisition: Brian J. Ferguson, Michael P. Weekes, Geoffrey L. Smith.
Investigation: Delphine M. Depierreux, Arwen F. Altenburg, Lior Soday, Alice Fletcher-
Etherington, Robin Antrobus.
Methodology: Michael P. Weekes.
Project administration: Michael P. Weekes, Geoffrey L. Smith.
Resources: Michael P. Weekes, Geoffrey L. Smith.
Supervision: Brian J. Ferguson, Michael P. Weekes, Geoffrey L. Smith.
Validation: Delphine M. Depierreux, Arwen F. Altenburg.
Visualization: Delphine M. Depierreux, Arwen F. Altenburg.
Writing – original draft: Delphine M. Depierreux, Arwen F. Altenburg, Michael P. Weekes,
Geoffrey L. Smith.
Writing – review & editing: Delphine M. Depierreux, Arwen F. Altenburg, Lior Soday, Alice
Fletcher-Etherington, Brian J. Ferguson, Michael P. Weekes, Geoffrey L. Smith.

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