Proteomic Analysis of Sea Cucumber (Holothuria leucospilota) from the South China Sea

[Objectives]Proteomics methods were used to analyze the total proteome of Holothuria leucospilota in the South China Sea,so as to provide a theoretical basis for elucidating the medicinal material basis of sea cucumber proteins and peptides.[Methods]H.leucospilota was collected from the South China Sea.Label-free proteomics methods were used to detect the protein profile of enzymatically hydrolyzed H.leucospilota total protein,and identify sea cucumber protein and peptide sequences,and gene ontology(GO)and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes(KEGG)bioinformatics analysis software were used to analyze significantly enriched proteins.The String database was used to construct a protein-protein interaction network of significantly enriched H.leucospilota proteins(PPI network).[Results]Proteomics identified 1200 sea cucumber proteins and 2967 peptides.GO analysis and KEGG analysis showed that the four significantly-enriched sea cucumber proteins hsc70,COX,CYTB and rbbp4 participated in 8 metabolic pathways,and COX1 and CYTB among them were significantly related to cardiac muscle contraction,oxidative phosphorylation and metabolic pathways.The PPI network analysis showed that the 13 significantly-enriched sea cucumber proteins had close protein-protein interaction relationships.[Conclusions]This study used proteomics to conduct preliminary identification and research on the proteins and peptides of H.leucospilota,providing a scientific basis for the application of H.leucospilota proteins and peptides in the fields of functional health food and drug research and development.