TY - JOUR
T1 - The origin and age of Plasmodium vivax
AU - Cornejo, Omar E.
AU - Escalante, Ananias A.
N1 - Funding Information:
A.A.E. is supported by NIH grant R01 GM60740. O.E.C. is supported by the Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Emory University. We thank Andrea McCollum, Janet Cox, Lisa Jones-Engel, Maria Pacheco and two anonymous reviewers for comments that improved the manuscript.
PY - 2006/12
Y1 - 2006/12
N2 - The evolutionary history of Plasmodium vivax has recently been addressed in terms of its origin as a parasite of humans and the age of extant populations. The consensus is that P. vivax originated as a result of a host switch from a non-human primate to hominids and that the extant populations did not originate as recently as previously proposed. Here, we show that, in a comparison of parasite isolates from across the world, Asian populations of P. vivax are the oldest. We discuss how this result, together with the phylogenetic evidence that P. vivax derived from Plasmodium found in Southeast Asian macaques, is most simply explained by assuming an Asian origin of this parasite. Nevertheless, the available data show only the tip of the iceberg. We discuss how sampling might affect time estimates to the most recent common ancestor for P. vivax populations and suggest that spatially explicit estimates are needed to understand the demographic history of this parasite better.
AB - The evolutionary history of Plasmodium vivax has recently been addressed in terms of its origin as a parasite of humans and the age of extant populations. The consensus is that P. vivax originated as a result of a host switch from a non-human primate to hominids and that the extant populations did not originate as recently as previously proposed. Here, we show that, in a comparison of parasite isolates from across the world, Asian populations of P. vivax are the oldest. We discuss how this result, together with the phylogenetic evidence that P. vivax derived from Plasmodium found in Southeast Asian macaques, is most simply explained by assuming an Asian origin of this parasite. Nevertheless, the available data show only the tip of the iceberg. We discuss how sampling might affect time estimates to the most recent common ancestor for P. vivax populations and suggest that spatially explicit estimates are needed to understand the demographic history of this parasite better.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.pt.2006.09.007
DO - 10.1016/j.pt.2006.09.007
M3 - Article
C2 - 17035086
AN - SCOPUS:33750835869
SN - 1471-4922
VL - 22
SP - 558
EP - 563
JO - Trends in Parasitology
JF - Trends in Parasitology
IS - 12
ER -