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Science 20 July 2001:
Vol. 293. no. 5529, pp. 482 - 484
DOI: 10.1126/science.1059878
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Reports

Recent Origin of Plasmodium falciparum from a Single Progenitor

Sarah K. Volkman,12* Alyssa E. Barry,13* Emily J. Lyons,13 Kaare M. Nielsen,145 Susan M. Thomas,12 Mehee Choi,14 Seema S. Thakore,12 Karen P. Day,13 Dyann F. Wirth,1dagger Daniel L. Hartl14

Genetic variability of Plasmodium falciparum underlies its transmission success and thwarts efforts to control disease caused by this parasite. Genetic variation in antigenic, drug resistance, and pathogenesis determinants is abundant, consistent with an ancient origin of P. falciparum, whereas DNA variation at silent (synonymous) sites in coding sequences appears virtually absent, consistent with a recent origin of the parasite. To resolve this paradox, we analyzed introns and demonstrated that these are deficient in single-nucleotide polymorphisms, as are synonymous sites in coding regions. These data establish the recent origin of P. falciparum and further provide an explanation for the abundant diversity observed in antigen and other selected genes.

1 The Harvard-Oxford Malaria Genome Diversity Project.
2 Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
3 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3PS, Oxford, UK.
4 Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
5 Department of Botany, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-7491, Trondheim, Norway.
*   These authors contributed equally to this work.

dagger    To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dfwirth{at}hsph.harvard.edu

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