Evaluation of Peromyscus leucopus Bone Marrow-Derived Macrophage Responses to Borrelia burgdorferi and Lipopolysaccharide

Currently, most tools utilized in host-pathogen interaction studies depend on the use of human or mouse (Mus musculus) cells and tissues. While these species have led to countless breakthroughs in our understanding of infectious disease, there are undoubtably important biological processes that are missed by limiting studies to these two vertebrate species. For instance, it is well-established that the most common North American rodent, the Peromyscus leucopus deermouse, has unique interactions with microbes, which likely shape its ability to serve as a critical reservoir for at numerous zoonotic pathogens—including a Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi. In this work, we expand the immunological toolkit to study P. leucopus biology by performing the first differentiation of deermouse bone marrow to macrophages using P. leucopus M-CSF producing HEK293T cells.