African great apes are natural hosts of multiple related malaria species, including Plasmodium falciparum
Franck Prugnollea1,
Patrick Duranda1,
Cécile Neelb,c,
Benjamin Ollomod,
Francisco J. Ayalae,
Céline Arnathaua,
Lucie Etienneb,
Eitel Mpoudi-Ngolec,
Dieudonné Nkoghed,
Eric Leroyd,f,
Eric Delaporteb,
Martine Peetersb, and
François Renauda
1F.P. and P.D. contributed equally to this work.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (2010) 107: 1458-1463
aLaboratoire Génétique et Evolution des Maladies Infectieuses, Unité Mixte de Recherche 2724, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement Montpellier, 34394 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
bUnité Mixte de Recherche 145, Virus de l'Immunodéficience Humaine/ Syndrome de l'ImmunoDéficience Acquise et Maladies Associées, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement and University of Montpellier 1, 34394 Montpellier, France
cInstitut de recherches Médicales et d'études des Plantes Médicinales Prévention du Sida au Cameroun Centre de Recherche Médicale, BP 906, Yaoundé, Cameroon
dUnité des Maladies Virales émergentes, Centre International de Recherches Médicales de Franceville, BP 769, Franceville, Gabon
eDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-2525, and
fEmergence des Pathologies Virales, Unité Mixte de Recherche 190, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement-Université de la Méditerranée, 13005 Marseille, France
Coverage on BBC News (18/01/10)
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Plasmodium reichenowi, a chimpanzee parasite, was until very recently the only known close relative of Plasmodium falciparum, the most virulent agent of human malaria. Recently, Plasmodium gaboni, another closely related chimpanzee parasite, was discovered, suggesting that the diversity of Plasmodium circulating in great apes in Africa might have been underestimated. It was also recently shown that P. reichenowi is a geographically widespread and genetically diverse chimpanzee parasite and that the world diversity of P. falciparum is fully included within the much broader genetic diversity of P. reichenowi. The evidence indicates that all extant populations of P. falciparum originated from P. reichenowi, likely by a single transfer from chimpanzees. In this work, we have studied the diversity of Plasmodium species infecting chimpanzees and gorillas in Central Africa (Cameroon and Gabon) from both wild-living and captive animals. The studies in wild apes used noninvasive sampling methods. We confirm the presence of P. reichenowi and P. gaboni in wild chimpanzees. Moreover, our results reveal the existence of an unexpected genetic diversity of Plasmodium lineages circulating in gorillas. We show that gorillas are naturally infected by two related lineages of parasites that have not been described previously, herein referred to as Plasmodium GorA and P. GorB, but also by P. falciparum, a species previously considered as strictly human specific. The continuously increasing contacts between humans and primate populations raise concerns about further reciprocal host transfers of these pathogens.
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