Excited to share: A Nature Communications study led by Fan Liu (Absea SAB Chair, FMP Berlin) introduces SHVIP—a method revealing 739 virus–host PPIs in intact HSV-1 infected cells.
It preserves membrane structure & uses AlphaFold to interpret complex networks.

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Curious about other viruses? Then also check out how SHVIP is applied to Influenza A virus infection of human cells and how it led to the identification of novel host factors. Pre-print with @jankosinski.bsky.social lab: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

A big integrative effort! XL-MS: Lars Mühlberg, @juliaruta.bsky.social and @fan-liu.bsky.social. Infectious work: Iris Gruska, Barbara Vetter and Lüder Wiebusch. Modeling: @bioinfo.se

Why its relevant:
- It captures >700 PPIs and >6,000 cross-links
- It resolves compartment-specific interactions at the intact membrane system
- It integrates with AlphaFold to map domain-level PPIs, even in disordered regions
- It is validated by molecular virology + mutagenesis

SHVIP combines bio-orthogonal labeling during host shutoff and cross-linking mass-spec (XL-MS). XL-MS resolves proximity-based protein-protein interactions residue contact sites in situ and the bio-orthogonal labeling increases sensitivity of virus-specific interactome capture.

Check out Structural Host–Virus Interactome Profiling (SHVIP) in intact cells infected with Herpes Simplex Virus type 1 (HSV-1)! Now published!

📄 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#LoveVirology #TeamMassSpec

Building atomic models to cryo-EM maps of huge molecules is intimidating: crowded, uncertain copy numbers, variable resolution ...
Fan Liu and team incl us, show how cross-linking MS can be used to build novel models of unknown complexes, like a giant Melbourne virus
biorxiv.org/content/10.1...