Comparative reservoir competence of Peromyscus leucopus, C57BL/6J, and C3H/HeN for Borrelia burgdorferi B31.

ABSTRACT: Borrelia burgdorferi, a Lyme disease spirochete, causes a range of acute and chronic maladies in humans. However, a primary vertebrate reservoir in the United States, the white-footed deermouse Peromyscus leucopus, is reported not to have reduced fitness following infection. Although laboratory strains of Mus musculus mice have successfully been leveraged to model acute human Lyme disease, the ability of these rodents to model B. burgdorferi-P. leucopus interactions remains understudied. Here, we compared infection of P. leucopus with B. burgdorferi B31 with infection of the traditional B. burgdorferi murine models-C57BL/6J and C3H/HeN Mus musculus, which develop signs of inflammation akin to human disease. We find that B. burgdorf

SUBMITTER: Bourgeois JS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11267898 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature