Mitochondrial genome sequences support ancient population expansion in Plasmodium vivax

作者：Jongwutiwes S; Puta****tip C; Iwasaki T; Ferreira MU; Kanbara H; Hughes AL^*

来源：Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2005, 22(8): 1733-1739.

DOI：10.1093/molbev/msi168

• bottleneck
• malaria
• Plasmodium vivax
• Plasmodium falciparum
• population expansion

Examination of nucleotide diversity in 106 mitochondrial genomes of the most geographically widespread human malaria parasite, Plasmodium vivax, revealed a level of diversity similar to, but slightly higher than, that seen in the virulent human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. The pairwise distribution of nucleotide differences among mitochondrial genome sequences supported the hypothesis that both these parasites underwent ancient population expansions. We estimated the age of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of the mitochondrial genomes of both P. vivax and P. falciparum at around 200,000-300,000 years ago. This is close to the previous estimates of the time of the human mitochondrial MRCA and the origin of modem Homo sapiens, consistent with the hypothesis that both these Plasmodium species were parasites of the hominid lineage before the origin of modem H. sapiens and that their population expansion coincided with the population expansion of their host.