Malaria's Eve: evidence of a recent population bottleneck throughout the world populations of Plasmodium falciparum.

ABSTRACT: We have analyzed DNA sequences from world-wide geographic strains of Plasmodium falciparum and found a complete absence of synonymous DNA polymorphism at 10 gene loci. We hypothesize that all extant world populations of the parasite have recently derived (within several thousand years) from a single ancestral strain. The upper limit of the 95% confidence interval for the time when this most recent common ancestor lived is between 24,500 and 57,500 years ago (depending on different estimates of the nucleotide substitution rate); the actual time is likely to be much more recent. The recent origin of the P. falciparum populations could have resulted from either a demographic sweep (P. falciparum has only recently spread throughout the world from a small geographically confined population) or

SUBMITTER: Rich SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC22505 | biostudies-literature | 1998 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature