On the Diversity of Malaria Parasites in African Apes and the Origin of Plasmodium falciparum from Bonobos

PLoS Pathogens

Thomas F. McCutchan¹  Mike Crandfield²  Lawrence Mugisha³  John M. Kasenene⁴  Jean-Marc Chavatte⁵  Anne Charlotte Grüner⁶  Georges Snounou⁶  Laurent Rénia⁷  Franck Letourneur⁷  Claudine André⁹  Anne Fischer^1,10  Michel Halbwax^1,10  Jean-Michel Krief^1,11  Omar E. Cornejo^1,12  M. Andreina Pacheco^1,13  Ananias A. Escalante^1,13  Sabrina Krief^1,14  Clara Lin^1,15 

[1] INSERM U567, Paris, France;Makerere University Biological Field Station, Fort Portal, Uganda;Chimpanzee Sanctuary & Wildlife Conservation Trust (CSWCT), Entebbe, Uganda;Department of Botany, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda;Emory University, Program in Population Biology, Ecology, and Evolution, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America;Institut Cochin, Université Paris Descartes, CNRS (UMR 8104), Paris, France;Laboratory of Malaria Immunobiology, Singapore Immunology Network, Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR), Biopolis, Singapore;Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America;Lola Ya Bonobo Bonobo Sanctuary, “Petites Chutes de la Lukaya”, Kimwenza–Mont Ngafula, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo;Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany;Projet pour la Conservation des Grands Singes, Paris, France;Research and Conservation Program, The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America;School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America;UMR 7206-USM 104, Eco-Anthropologie et Ethnobiologie, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France;USM0307, Parasitologie Comparée et Modèles Expérimentaux, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France

关键词: Plasmodium;    Malarial parasites;    Chimpanzees;    Bonobos;    Parasitic diseases;    Mitochondria;    Phylogenetic analysis;    Plasmodium falciparum;   

DOI  :  10.1371/journal.ppat.1000765

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Public Library of Science

【 摘 要 】

The origin of Plasmodium falciparum, the etiological agent of the most dangerous forms of human malaria, remains controversial. Although investigations of homologous parasites in African Apes are crucial to resolve this issue, studies have been restricted to a chimpanzee parasite related to P. falciparum, P. reichenowi, for which a single isolate was available until very recently. Using PCR amplification, we detected Plasmodium parasites in blood samples from 18 of 91 individuals of the genus Pan, including six chimpanzees (three Pan troglodytes troglodytes, three Pan t. schweinfurthii) and twelve bonobos (Pan paniscus). We obtained sequences of the parasites' mitochondrial genomes and/or from two nuclear genes from 14 samples. In addition to P. reichenowi, three other hitherto unknown lineages were found in the chimpanzees. One is related to P. vivax and two to P. falciparum that are likely to belong to distinct species. In the bonobos we found P. falciparum parasites whose mitochondrial genomes indicated that they were distinct from those present in humans, and another parasite lineage related to P. malariae. Phylogenetic analyses based on this diverse set of Plasmodium parasites in African Apes shed new light on the evolutionary history of P. falciparum. The data suggested that P. falciparum did not originate from P. reichenowi of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), but rather evolved in bonobos (Pan paniscus), from which it subsequently colonized humans by a host-switch. Finally, our data and that of others indicated that chimpanzees and bonobos maintain malaria parasites, to which humans are susceptible, a factor of some relevance to the renewed efforts to eradicate malaria.

【 授权许可】

CC BY