Genomes of cryptic chimpanzee Plasmodium species reveal key evolutionary events leading to human malaria

Sesh A. Sundararaman, Lindsey J. Plenderleith, Weimin Liu, Dorothy E. Loy, Gerald H. Learn, Yingying Li, Katharina S. Shaw, Ahidjo Ayouba, Martine Peeters, Sheri Speede, George M. Shaw, Frederic D. Bushman, Dustin Brisson, Julian C. Rayner, Paul M. Sharp and Beatrice H. Hahn ()
Additional contact information
Sesh A. Sundararaman: University of Pennsylvania
Lindsey J. Plenderleith: Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution, University of Edinburgh
Weimin Liu: University of Pennsylvania
Dorothy E. Loy: University of Pennsylvania
Gerald H. Learn: University of Pennsylvania
Yingying Li: University of Pennsylvania
Katharina S. Shaw: University of Pennsylvania
Ahidjo Ayouba: Unité Mixte Internationale 233, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), INSERM U1175, University of Montpellier
Martine Peeters: Unité Mixte Internationale 233, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), INSERM U1175, University of Montpellier
Sheri Speede: Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, IDA-Africa
George M. Shaw: University of Pennsylvania
Frederic D. Bushman: University of Pennsylvania
Dustin Brisson: University of Pennsylvania
Julian C. Rayner: Malaria Programme, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus
Paul M. Sharp: Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution, University of Edinburgh
Beatrice H. Hahn: University of Pennsylvania

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract African apes harbour at least six Plasmodium species of the subgenus Laverania, one of which gave rise to human Plasmodium falciparum. Here we use a selective amplification strategy to sequence the genome of chimpanzee parasites classified as Plasmodium reichenowi and Plasmodium gaboni based on the subgenomic fragments. Genome-wide analyses show that these parasites indeed represent distinct species, with no evidence of cross-species mating. Both P. reichenowi and P. gaboni are 10-fold more diverse than P. falciparum, indicating a very recent origin of the human parasite. We also find a remarkable Laverania-specific expansion of a multigene family involved in erythrocyte remodelling, and show that a short region on chromosome 4, which encodes two essential invasion genes, was horizontally transferred into a recent P. falciparum ancestor. Our results validate the selective amplification strategy for characterizing cryptic pathogen species, and reveal evolutionary events that likely predisposed the precursor of P. falciparum to colonize humans.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11078 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms11078

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11078

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().