Research article

Cloning and characterization of deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) cytokine and chemokine cDNAs

Tony Schountz^1,2 , Renata Green¹ , Bennett Davenport¹ , Amie Buniger¹ , Tiffany Richens^1,4 , J Jeffrey Root³ , Forbes Davidson¹ , Charles H Calisher³ and Barry J Beaty³

¹Department of Biological Sciences, Mesa State College, 1100 North Ave., Grand Junction, CO 81501, USA

²Saccomanno Research Institute, 2530 N. 8^th Street, Wellington Bldg. 4, Ste. 100, Grand Junction, CO 81501, USA

³Arthropod-Borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA

⁴Arthropod-Borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA

author email corresponding author email

BMC Immunology 2004, 5:1doi:10.1186/1471-2172-5-1

Published:	13 January 2004

Abstract

Background

Sin Nombre virus (SNV) establishes a persistent infection in the deer mouse, Peromyscus maniculatus. A strong antibody response occurs in response to SNV infection, but the role of the innate immune response is unclear. To address this issue, we have initiated an effort to identify and characterize deer mouse cytokine and chemokine genes. Such cytokines and chemokines are involved in various aspects of immunity, including the transition from innate to adaptive responses, type I and type II responses, recruitment of leukocytes to sites of infection, and production of mature cells from bone marrow progenitors.

Results

We established a colony of SNV antibody-negative deer mice and cloned 11 cytokine and chemokine partial cDNA sequences using directed PCR. Most of the deer mouse sequences were highly conserved with orthologous sequences from other rodent species and functional domains were identified in each putative polypeptide.

Conclusions

The availability of these sequences will allow the examination of the role of these cytokines in deer mouse responses to infection with Sin Nombre virus.