The effect of infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) infection on cellular protein expression is essential for viral pathogenesis. To characterize the cellular response to IBDV infection, the differential proteomes of chicken embryo fibroblasts, with and without IBDV infection, were analyzed at different time points with two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) followed by MALDI-TOF/TOF identification. Comparative analysis of multiple 2-DE gels revealed that the majority of protein expression changes appeared at 48 and 96 h after IBDV infection. Mass spectrometry identified 51 altered cellular proteins, including 13 up-regulated proteins and 38 down-regulated proteins 12-96 h after infection. Notably 2-DE analysis revealed that IBDV infection induced the increased expression of polyubiquitin, apolipoprotein A-I, heat shock 27-kDa protein 1, actins, tubulins, eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4A isoform 2, acidic ribosomal phosphoprotein, and ribosomal protein SA isoform 2. In addition, IBDV infection considerably suppressed those cellular proteins involved in ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation, energy metabolism, intermediate filaments, host translational apparatus, and signal transduction. Moreover 38 corresponding genes of the differentially expressed proteins were quantitated by real time RT-PCR to examine the transcriptional profiles between infected and uninfected chicken embryo fibroblasts. Western blot further confirmed the inhibition of Rho protein GDP dissociation inhibitor expression and the induction of polyubiquitin during IBDV infection. Subcellular distribution analysis of the cytoskeletal proteins vimentin and beta-tubulin clearly demonstrated that IBDV infection induced the disruption of the vimentin network and microtubules late in IBDV infection. Thus, this work effectively provides useful dynamic protein-related information to facilitate further investigation of the underlying mechanism of IBDV infection and pathogenesis.