1. Plasmodium simium: Population Genomics Reveals the Origin of a Reverse Zoonosis.
- Author
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de Oliveira TC, Rodrigues PT, Early AM, Duarte AMRC, Buery JC, Bueno MG, Catão-Dias JL, Cerutti C, Rona LDP, Neafsey DE, and Ferreira MU
- Subjects
- Animals, Brazil, Haplorhini, Malaria, Plasmodium classification, Plasmodium vivax, Polymerase Chain Reaction, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Bacterial Zoonoses, Metagenomics, Monkey Diseases parasitology, Plasmodium genetics
- Abstract
Background: The population history of Plasmodium simium, which causes malaria in sylvatic Neotropical monkeys and humans along the Atlantic Coast of Brazil, remains disputed. Genetically diverse P vivax populations from various sources, including the lineages that founded the species P simium, are thought to have arrived in the Americas in separate migratory waves., Methods: We use population genomic approaches to investigate the origin and evolution of P simium., Results: We find a minimal genome-level differentiation between P simium and present-day New World P vivax isolates, consistent with their common geographic origin and subsequent divergence on this continent. The meagre genetic diversity in P simium samples from humans and monkeys implies a recent transfer from humans to non-human primates - a unique example of malaria as a reverse zoonosis of public health significance. Likely genomic signatures of P simium adaptation to new hosts include the deletion of >40% of a key erythrocyte invasion ligand, PvRBP2a, which may have favored more efficient simian host cell infection., Conclusions: New World P vivax lineages that switched from humans to platyrrhine monkeys founded the P simium population that infects nonhuman primates and feeds sustained human malaria transmission in the outskirts of major cities., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)
- Published
- 2021
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