Influenza A virus exerts a large health burden during
both yearly epidemics and global pandemics. However, designing effective
vaccine and treatment options has proven difficult since the virus
evolves rapidly. Therefore, it may be beneficial to identify host proteins associated with viral infection and replication
to establish potential new antiviral targets. We have previously measured
host protein responses in continuously cultured A549 cells infected
with mouse-adapted virus strain A/PR/8/34(H1N1; PR8). We here identify
and measure host proteins differentially regulated in more relevant
primary human bronchial airway epithelial (HBAE) cells. A total of
3740 cytosolic HBAE proteins were identified by 2D LC–MS/MS,
of which 52 were up-regulated ≥2-fold and 41 were down-regulated ≥2-fold
after PR8 infection. Up-regulated HBAE proteins clustered primarily
into interferon signaling, other host defense processes, and molecular
transport, whereas down-regulated proteins were associated with cell
death signaling pathways, cell adhesion and motility, and lipid metabolism.
Comparison to influenza-infected A549 cells indicated some common
influenza-induced host cell alterations, including defense response,
molecular transport proteins, and cell adhesion. However, HBAE-specific
alterations consisted of interferon and cell death signaling. These
data point to important differences between influenza replication
in continuous and primary cell lines and/or alveolar and bronchial
epithelial cells.