Evidence of a Recent Bottleneck in <i>Plasmodium falciparum</i> Populations on the Honduran–Nicaraguan Border
The countries of Central America and the island of Hispaniola have set the goal of eliminating malaria in less than a decade. Although efforts to reduce the malaria burden in the region have been successful, there has been an alarming increase in cases in the Nicaraguan Moskitia since 2014. The cont...
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| Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | EN |
| Publicado: |
MDPI AG
2021
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://doaj.org/article/42f9ce2993af4ada954df78a267969ec |
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| Sumario: | The countries of Central America and the island of Hispaniola have set the goal of eliminating malaria in less than a decade. Although efforts to reduce the malaria burden in the region have been successful, there has been an alarming increase in cases in the Nicaraguan Moskitia since 2014. The continuous decrease in cases between 2000 and 2014, followed by a rapid expansion from 2015 to the present, has generated a potential bottleneck effect in the populations of <i>Plasmodium</i> spp. Consequently, this study aimed to evaluate the genetic diversity of <i>P. falciparum</i> and the decrease in allelic richness in this population. The polymorphic regions of the <i>pfmsp</i>-1 and <i>pfmsp</i>-2 genes of patients with falciparum malaria from Honduras and Nicaragua were analyzed using nested PCR and sequencing. Most of the samples were classified into the K1 allelic subfamily of the <i>pfmsp</i>-1 gene and into the 3D7 subfamily of the <i>pfmsp</i>-2 gene. Despite the low genetic diversity found, more than half of the samples presented a polyclonal K1/RO33 haplotype. No sequence polymorphisms were found within each allelic subfamily. This study describes a notable decrease in the genetic diversity of <i>P. falciparum</i> in the Moskitia region after a bottleneck phenomenon. These results will be useful for future epidemiological investigations and the monitoring of malaria transmission in Central America. |
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