Human Plasmodium vivax diversity, population structure and evolutionary origin

Virginie Rougeron (1) , Eric Elguero (2) , Céline Arnathau (1) , Beatriz Acuña Hidalgo (2) , Durand Patrick (1) , Sandrine Houzé (3) , Antoine Berry (4, 5) , Sedigheh Zakeri (6) , Rashidul Haque (7) , Mohammad Shafiul Alam (7) , François H Nosten (8, 9) , Carlo Severini (10) , Tamirat Gebru Woldearegai (11, 12, 13) , Benjamin Mordmüller (11, 12) , Peter Gottfried Kremsner (11) , Lilia González-Cerón (14) , Gustavo Fontecha (15) , Dionicia Gamboa (16) , Lise Musset (17, 18, 19, 20) , Eric Legrand (21, 17, 18, 19) , Oscar Noya (22, 23) , Tepanata Pumpaibool (24, 25) , Pingchai Harnyuttanakorn (25, 26) , Khadijetou Mint Lekweiry (27) , Musab Mohamad Albsheer (28) , Muzamil Mahdi Abdel Hamid (28) , Ali Ould Mohamed Salem Boukary (27, 29) , Jean-Francois Trape (2) , Francois Renaud (2) , Franck Prugnolle (2)

1 MIVEGEC-HEAT - Health, Emergence, Adaptation and Transmission
2 MIVEGEC - Maladies infectieuses et vecteurs : écologie, génétique, évolution et contrôle
3 AP-HP - Hôpital Bichat - Claude Bernard [Paris]
4 CPTP - Centre de Physiopathologie Toulouse Purpan
5 Service de Parasitologie et Mycologie [CHU Toulouse]
6 MVRG - Malaria and Vector Research Group
7 ICDDR,B - International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh
8 Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health [Oxford, UK]
9 SMRU - Shoklo Malaria Research Unit [Mae Sot, Thailand]
10 DMI - Dipartimento di Malattie infettive = Department of Infectious Diseases [Rome, Italie]
11 ITM - Institute for Tropical Medicine = Institut für Tropenmedizin, Reisemedizin, Humanparasitolgie [Tübingen, Allemagne]
12 DZIF - German Center for Infectious Research - partner site Tübingen [Tübingen, Allemagne]
13 College of Health and Medical Sciences [Harar, Ethiopie]
14 CRISP - Centro Regional de Investigación en Salud Pública = Regional Centre of Research in Public Health [Tapachula, Mexique]
15 IIM - Microbiology Research Institute = Instituto de Investigaciones en Microbiología [Tegucigalpa, Honduras]
16 IMT AvH - Instituto de Medicina Tropical "Alexander von Humboldt"
17 Institut Pasteur de la Guyane
18 Laboratoire de Parasitologie [Cayenne, Guyane française]
19 CNR - Centre National de Référence du Paludisme [Cayenne, Guyane française]
20 CCOMS - Centre Collaborateur OMS pour la surveillance de la résistance aux antipaludiques [Cayenne, Guyane française]
21 Génétique du paludisme et résistance - Malaria Genetics and Resistance
22 Centro para Estudios Sobre Malaria [Venezuela]
23 IMT - Instituto de Medicina Tropical [Caracas, Venezuela}
24 Graduate School [Bangkok, Thailande]
25 College of Public Health Science [Bangkok, Thailande]
26 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science [Bangkok, Thailande]
27 Faculté des Sciences et Techniques [Nouakchott, Mauritania]
28 University of Khartoum
29 VITROME - Vecteurs - Infections tropicales et méditerranéennes

More than 200 million malaria clinical cases are reported each year due to Plasmodium vivax, the most widespread Plasmodium species in the world. This species has been neglected and understudied for a long time, due to its lower mortality in comparison with Plasmodium falciparum. A renewed interest has emerged in the past decade with the discovery of antimalarial drug resistance and of severe and even fatal human cases. Nonetheless, today there are still significant gaps in our understanding of the population genetics and evolutionary history of P. vivax, particularly because of a lack of genetic data from Africa. To address these gaps, we genotyped 14 microsatellite loci in 834 samples obtained from 28 locations in 20 countries from around the world. We discuss the worldwide population genetic structure and diversity and the evolutionary origin of P. vivax in the world and its introduction into the Americas. This study demonstrates the importance of conducting genome-wide analyses of P. vivax in order to unravel its complex evolutionary history.

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Microbiology and Parasitology; Parasitology

Virginie Rougeron, Eric Elguero, Céline Arnathau, Beatriz Acuña Hidalgo, Durand Patrick, et al.. Human Plasmodium vivax diversity, population structure and evolutionary origin. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 2020, 14 (3), pp.e0008072. ⟨10.1371/journal.pntd.0008072⟩. ⟨pasteur-02567249⟩