Enhancing the utility of deer mice as an infectious disease model

Abstract Deer mice (genus Peromyscus) are the most abundant mammals in North America. In biomedical research, their most prominent use is in the field of infectious diseases, because they are the natural reservoir of infectious agents such as Borrelia burgdorferi which causes Lyme disease, for Hantaviruses, Sin Nombre Virus, and SARS-CoV-2 that caused the COVID-19 pandemic. The University of South Carolina operates, for more than 40 years, the Peromyscus Genetic Stock Center (PGSC) that is charged with the mission of maintaining different stocks of Peromyscus, supplying them to outside investigators and exploiting deer mouse- related research. The present proposal addresses 3 major unmet needs of the Peromyscus community of researchers that impede the use of deer mice as a model and are related to the poor breeding program that does not enable rapid availability if deer mice to users, the lack of Peromyscus-specific antibodies, and the lack of readily access to breeding records for pedigree analyses. Here, we request funds to enhance the utility of deer mice as a model of relevance to NIAID's interests by (1) strengthening the breeding capacities of the PGSC, (2) by developing specialized immunological reagents such as Peromyscus-specific antibodies, and (3) by curating our electronic databases and rendering them easily accessible to outside users. Plans for the project's sustainability have been developed, and it is anticipated that upon completion it will be supported fully by the income generated.