Back to Search
Start Over
Mosquito vectors of ape malarias: Another piece of the puzzle
- Source :
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 113:5153-5154
- Publication Year :
- 2016
- Publisher :
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016.
-
Abstract
- It is remarkable that the two Plasmodium species that infect millions of humans around the world today, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax , both originated in Africa from single common ancestors that infected wild-living apes. Plasmodium species of the subgenus Laverania , which include P. falciparum , exhibit strong host specificity, and no host transfers between humans, gorillas, and chimpanzees have been documented in nature. In contrast, host transfers take place frequently in nature for parasites of the subgenus Plasmodium that includes P. vivax and Plasmodium malariae (1⇓⇓–4). P. falciparum appears to have originated as a result of a single transfer of Plasmodium praefalciparum from gorillas to humans (1). The ability of gorilla parasites to invade the human erythrocytes appears to be a major barrier for interspecies transfer that P. praefalciparum had to overcome (5). However, although P. falciparum does not infect apes in nature, species transfers to bonobos and chimpanzees have been documented in sanctuaries where apes come in close contact with infected humans. Furthermore, experimental infections of chimpanzees with P. falciparum have been achieved multiple times under laboratory conditions (6). This evidence indicates that there is no strong biological barrier for P. falciparum to transfer back from humans to certain ape species. In PNAS, Makanga et al. (7) investigate the potential role of anopheline mosquito vectors as a barrier for interspecies transfer of Plasmodium parasites in an extensive longitudinal survey. Sylvatic anopheline species were collected in two forested wildlife reserves in Gabon (Central Africa) for a period of 15 mo., and 18 different anopheline mosquito species were identified based on morphology and molecular taxonomy. Mosquito whole body and salivary gland were screened for the presence of Plasmodium parasites by PCR amplification and sequencing of a … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: cbarillas{at}niaid.nih.gov. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
Multidisciplinary
biology
Plasmodium vivax
Zoology
Plasmodium falciparum
Gorilla
Plasmodium malariae
biology.organism_classification
medicine.disease
Plasmodium
Laverania
03 medical and health sciences
030104 developmental biology
Commentaries
biology.animal
parasitic diseases
medicine
Subgenus
Malaria
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 10916490 and 00278424
- Volume :
- 113
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....fd5a982f0a53f10fac2f06c56d04849d