Quantitative iTRAQ LC-MS/MS reveals muscular proteome profiles of deep pressure ulcers

Pressure ulcers (PUs) are a common clinical issue lacking effective treatment and validated pharmacological therapy in hospital settings. Ischemia-reperfusion injury of deep tissue, especially muscle, plays a vital role in the formation and development of the overwhelming majority of PUs. However, muscular protein expression study in PUs has not been reported. Herein, we aimed to investigate the muscular proteins profiles in PUs and to explore the pathological mechanism of PUs. The iTRAQ LC-MS/MS was conducted to detect the protein profiles in clinical muscle samples of PUs. The GO and KEGG pathways analyses were performed for annotation of differentially expressed proteins. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed by STRING online database, and hub proteins were validated by the immunoblotting. Based on proteomics results, we found a number of proteins that were differentially expressed in PU muscle samples compared with the normal and identified unique proteins expression patterns between these two groups, suggesting that they might involve in pathological process of the disease. Importantly, cathepsin B and D, as well as other autophagy-lysosome and apoptosis associated proteins were identified. Further experiments characterize the expression of these proteins and their regulation in the process of apoptosis and autophagy. These findings may provide novel insights into the mechanisms of lysosome-associated pathways involved in the initiation of PUs. This is the first study linking proteomics to PUs muscle tissues, which indicated cathepsin B and D might be key drug target for PUs.