Adaptive Evolution of RH5 in Ape Plasmodium species of the Laverania Subgenus.

ABSTRACT: Plasmodium falciparum, the major cause of malaria morbidity and mortality in humans, has been shown to have emerged after cross-species transmission of one of six host-specific parasites (subgenus Laverania) infecting wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla). Binding of the parasite-encoded ligand RH5 to the host protein basigin is essential for erythrocyte invasion and has been implicated in host specificity. A recent study claimed to have found two amino acid changes in RH5 that "drove the host shift leading to the emergence of P. falciparum as a human pathogen." However, the ape Laverania data available at that time, which included only a single distantly related chimpanzee parasite sequence, were inadequate to j

SUBMITTER: Plenderleith LJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5784257 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature