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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Single-nucleotide polymorphisms and genome diversity in Plasmodium vivax
Contributor:
Feng, Xiaorong;
Carlton, Jane M.;
Joy, Deirdre A.;
Mu, Jianbing;
Furuya, Tetsuya;
Suh, Bernard B.;
Wang, Yufeng;
Barnwell, John W.;
Su, Xin-Zhuan
imprint:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2003
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1073/pnas.1232502100
ISSN:
0027-8424;
1091-6490
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
<jats:p>
The study of genetic variation in malaria parasites has practical
significance for developing strategies to control the disease. Vaccines based
on highly polymorphic antigens may be confounded by allelic restriction of the
host immune response. In response to drug pressure, a highly plastic genome
may generate resistant mutants more easily than a monomorphic one.
Additionally, the study of the distribution of genomic polymorphisms may
provide information leading to the identification of genes associated with
traits such as parasite development and drug resistance. Indeed, the age and
diversity of the human malaria parasite
<jats:italic>Plasmodium falciparum</jats:italic>
has
been the subject of recent debate, because an ancient parasite with a complex
genome is expected to present greater challenges for drug and vaccine
development. The genome diversity of the important human pathogen
<jats:italic>Plasmodium vivax</jats:italic>
, however, remains essentially unknown. Here we
analyze an ≈100-kb contiguous chromosome segment from five isolates,
revealing 191 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 44 size
polymorphisms. The SNPs are not evenly distributed across the segment with
blocks of high and low diversity. Whereas the majority (≈63%) of the SNPs
are in intergenic regions, introns contain significantly less SNPs than
intergenic sequences. Polymorphic tandem repeats are abundant and are more
uniformly distributed at a frequency of about one polymorphic tandem repeat
per 3 kb. These data show that
<jats:italic>P. vivax</jats:italic>
has a highly diverse genome,
and provide useful information for further understanding the genome diversity
of the parasite.
</jats:p>