Proteomics identification and annotation of proteins of a cell line of Bombyx mori, BmN cells

A cell line is an important experimental platform for biological sciences as it can basically reflect the biology of its original organism. In this study, we firstly characterized the proteome of cultured BmN cells, derived from Bombyx mori. Total 1478 proteins were identified with two or more peptides by using 1D (one-dimensional) SDS/PAGE and LTQ-Orbitrap. According to the gene ontology annotation, these proteins presented diverse pI values and molecular masses, involved in various molecular functions, including catalytic activity, binding, molecular transducer activity, motor activity, transcription regulator activity, enzyme regulator activity and antioxidant activity. Some proteins related to virus infection were also identified. These results provided us with useful information to understand the molecular mechanism of B. mori as well as antiviral immunity.