Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Escalante, Ananias A
• Goldman, Ira F
• De Rijk, Peter
• De Wachter, Rupert
• Collins, William E
• Qari, Shoukat H
• Lal, Altaf A

Titel

Phylogenetic study of the genus Plasmodium based on the secondary structure-based alignment of the small subunit ribosomal RNA

Ist Teil von

• Molecular and biochemical parasitology, 1997-12, Vol.90 (1), p.317-321

Ort / Verlag

Netherlands: Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

1997

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Elsevier Journal Backfiles on ScienceDirect (DFG Nationallizenzen)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The phylogenetic relationship of the genus Plasmodium has been studied by several investigators using partial or full-length sequences of 18S SSU rRNA genes. Special attention has been focused on the issue of the origin of Plasmodium falciparum. Earlier studies suggested that P. falciparum was of recent origin because of a host switch from a nonhuman host. This hypothesis was used to explain the high virulence of P. falciparum in comparison with other human malarial parasites. Studies of plasmodial evolution that used 18S SSU rRNA gene-based phylogeny showed that P. falciparum shared a common ancestor with avian Plasmodium species. It was further suggested that this host switch could have taken place at the beginning of agriculture, supporting the traditional notion that the high virulence of P. falciparum could be explained by the short period of the host-parasite association. Subsequent phylogenetic studies showed that P. reichenowi (a chimpanzee parasite) was closely related to P. falciparum and that the bird parasites shared a common ancestor with Plasmodium parasitic of lizards.