Skip Navigation



MBE Advance Access published online on April 2, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msn073
This Article
Right arrow Advance Access manuscript (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrowOA All Versions of this Article:
25/6/1245    most recent
msn073v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Joy, D. A.
Right arrow Articles by Su, X.-z.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Joy, D. A.
Right arrow Articles by Su, X.-z.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Published by Oxford University Press 2008.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Research Article

Local Adaptation and Vector-Mediated Population Structure in Plasmodium vivax Malaria

Deirdre A. Joy*,ohm, Lilia Gonzalez-Ceron, Jane M. Carlton§, Amy Gueye{int}, Michael Fayprod, Thomas F. McCutchan{phi} and Xin-zhuan Su*,ohm

* Laboratory or Malaria and Vector Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-8132, USA
Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica, Chiapas State, Mexico
§ New York University School of Medicine, Department of Medical Parasitology
{int} Hood College, Frederick, Maryland
prod Biostatistics Research Branch, Department of Clinical Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health
{phi} Regulation of Growth and Development Section, Laboratory or Malaria and Vector Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health

ohm Corresponding author:Tel: 301-402-0876, Fax: 301-402-2201, E-mail: xsu{at}niaid.nih.gov, djoy{at}mail.nih.gov

Received for publication October 19, 2007. Revision received February 20, 2008. Accepted for publication March 23, 2008.

Plasmodium vivax in southern Mexico exhibits different infectivities to two local mosquito vectors, Anopheles pseudopunctipennis and Anopheles albimanus. Previous work has tied these differences in mosquito infectivity to variation in the central repeat motif of the malaria parasite's circumsporozoite (csp) gene, but subsequent studies have questioned this view. Here we present evidence that P. vivax in southern Mexico is comprised of three genetic populations whose distributions largely mirror those of the two mosquito vectors. Additionally, laboratory colony feeding experiments indicate that parasite populations are most compatible with sympatric mosquito species. Our results suggest that reciprocal selection between malaria parasites and mosquito vectors has led to local adaptation of the parasite. Adaptation to local vectors may play an important role in generating population structure in Plasmodium. A better understanding of co-evolutionary dynamics between sympatric mosquitoes and parasites will facilitate the identification of molecular mechanisms relevant to disease transmission in nature, and provide crucial information for malaria control.

Key Words: malaria • Plasmodium vivax • microsatellites • co-evolution


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.