Editorial: The “proteine 2022” conference

Francesco Balestri (1) , Adeline Goulet (2, 3) , Gabriella Tedeschi (4)

1 University of Pisa - Università di Pisa
2 LISM - Laboratoire d'ingénierie des systèmes macromoléculaires
3 AMU - Aix Marseille Université
4 UNIMI - Università degli Studi di Milano = University of Milan

Editorial on the Research Topic: The "proteine 2022" conference The Research Topic of this Research Topic aims to gather the Proceedings of "Proteine 2022" meeting (Pisa, May-18-20) organized by the Protein Group of the Italian Society of Biochemistry (SIB). This Research Topic is focused on protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions in order to obtain new relevant knowledge about the discovery, design and the rational development of drugs for the treatment of particular diseases. In this Research Topic new important data regarding the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2) are presented. The manuscript of Iacobucci et al., focuses on the viral glycoprotein Spike S which is involved in the recognition and interaction of viral particles with surface host receptors as well as in the fusion of the viral capsid with the host cell membrane. Authors investigated the Spike S1 subunit interactomes looking for potential additional Spike human receptors that could possibly be involved in other intracellular processes in non-pulmonary systems. Shotgun proteomics approaches were used for protein identification and several bioinformatics approaches were performed for functional data analysis. The proteomic experiments allowed the authors to identify many host protein targets and ascertain the role of the S1 domain in all steps of the interaction between the pathogen and the different host cell lines used in this research. Their data suggest the role of S1 not only in receptor recognition but also in vesicle formation; an interplay between S1 domain and human proteins associated with energetic cell metabolism in almost all analysed cell lines has been highlighted. In the manuscript of Dos Santos et al., Authors showed a strong correlation between enhanced in vivo proteolysis and mortality in patients with septic shock caused by a bacterial infection as well as by COVID-19-induced bacterial superinfection. They used a peptidomic-based approach in order to estimate the magnitude of in vivo proteolysis by assessing the abundance and count of peptides in the plasma sample. The analysis of the circulating proteome and peptidome was reinforced by the quantitation of the proteolytic activity of proteases that are activated during the acute form of the disease in order to obtain more information on the role of proteases in the regulation of the balance between coagulation and fibrinolysis in the systemic intravascular proteolysis observed during acute illness. The correlation between proteolytic activity and protease expression patterns in plasma during bacterial superinfection can provide pathophysiologically and clinically valuable information that could be useful to anticipate the signs of possible coagulation disorders and aid in early diagnosis providing useful devices for a timely therapy.

Mots clés: biochemistry; proteins annual meeting; Italian society of biochemistry; proteins group

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Francesco Balestri, Adeline Goulet, Gabriella Tedeschi. Editorial: The “proteine 2022” conference. Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, 2023, 10, ⟨10.3389/fmolb.2023.1157442⟩. ⟨hal-04471002⟩