There are many animals that show seasonal changes in metabolism and reproduction, demonstrating a link between the nervous system and hormonal system. There also is a prominent seasonal incidence of infectious disease in animals as well as humans. Seasonal changes in immune function have been shown in many field studies on mammals, and a few lab studies on wild species such as deer mice and voles. Many immunological tools exist to study the relation of immune function in laboratory mice, but lab mice are not responsive to environmental factors that drive seasonality changes in wild populations. Immunological techniques for species like deer mice and voles are largely limited to relatively nonspecific basic cellular processes. There are some pilot data that show Siberian hamsters, a non-laboratory strain with well-known seasonal physiological changes regulated by the neuroendocrine system, have some immune parameters enhanced by a long-term exposure to short day lengths. This project is a Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) for technical development of state-of-the art immunological techniques that will work on these hamsters and other non-traditional and wild rodents. Novel antibody reagents will be identified and used to establish highly sensitive and sophisticated methods to identify immune cell types and to quantify their production of immunological products. The likely impact of the results is very high, because the new technical developments will clarify basic mechanisms of neuorimmune interactions, specifically how immune responsiveness is adapted to seasonal challenges encountered by most mammals in the real world outside the laboratory. The new methodologies can be applied to a wide diversity of immune cell responses across species, with potential contributions also to veterinary care and to maintaining endangered species.
