Ticks, being vectors for a variety of pathogens such as tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV), have developed defense mechanisms and pathways against infections, allowing them to control the virus at a level that does not hinder their fitness and development. At the present moment, only a few studies focused on interactions between ticks and TBEV on a molecular level have been published. Here, a possible application of MALDI-TOF MS as a research tool for the investigation of tick-virus interactions was shown. Mass spectrometry (MS) profiles of TBEV-infected and non-infected IRE/CTVM19 tick cell line were compared using principal component analysis. MS spectra were clustered based on the cultivation time of cells, but not their infection status. Nevertheless, the analysis of loading plots revealed different factors (peaks) being involved in the clustering of infected and non-infected cells. Out of them, nine were assigned with proteins: five and four for non-infected and infected cells, respectively. Peak with m/z 8565 was found to be of interest because it was suppressed upon TBEV infection and assigned to proteasome subunit alpha type (B7QE67).

壁虱是多种病原体的载体，例如壁虱传播性脑炎病毒（TBEV），已经形成了防御机制和抵抗感染的途径，从而使它们能够控制病毒的水平不影响其适应性和发育。目前，仅在分子水平上关注tick和TBEV之间相互作用的研究很少。在这里，显示了MALDI-TOF MS作为研究as病毒相互作用的研究工具的可能应用。使用主成分分析比较了TBEV感染和未感染IRE / CTVM19壁虱细胞系的质谱图（MS）。MS光谱基于细胞的培养时间而不是其感染状态进行聚类。不过，负荷图的分析揭示了感染和未感染细胞聚集的不同因素（峰值）。在它们之中，有九种被分配了蛋白质：未感染和被感染的细胞分别有五个和四个。顶峰已发现m / z 8565是令人感兴趣的，因为它在TBEV感染后被抑制，并被分配为蛋白酶体亚基α型（B7QE67）。