Back to Search
Start Over
Plasmodium simium: Population Genomics Reveals the Origin of a Reverse Zoonosis.
- Source :
- Journal of Infectious Diseases; Dec2021, Vol. 224 Issue 11, p1950-1961, 12p
- Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- <bold>Background: </bold>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.<bold>Methods: </bold>We use population genomic approaches to investigate the origin and evolution of P simium.<bold>Results: </bold>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.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- ZOONOSES
GENETIC variation
SUBURBS
PLASMODIUM
GENOMICS
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00221899
- Volume :
- 224
- Issue :
- 11
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Journal of Infectious Diseases
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 153891830
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiab214