The Virus–Host Interactome: Knowing the Players to Understand the Game

Abstract While viruses encode a limited repertoire of factors, their influence on host proteins is substantial. Various high-throughput technologies have been employed to gain a global understanding of how viruses rewire cellular machinery to promote replication and evade immune responses. These approaches can elucidate the interplay that occurs between virus and host by identifying host factors that directly associate with viral proteins, determining what cellular factors impact the viral lifecycle and what viral countermeasures circumvent immune surveillance. This chapter will discuss system-level technologies that are used to identify host proteins, pathways, and biochemical complexes that govern viral pathogenesis. We will examine the information that can be gained from genome- and proteome-level analyses of host–pathogen interactions, the advantages and pitfalls of various methods and provide examples of significant breakthroughs that have been facilitated using OMICs-based technologies.