Microsatellite characterization of Plasmodium falciparum from symptomatic and non-symptomatic infections from the Western Amazon reveals the existence of non-symptomatic infection-associated genotypes

• Autor(a) principal: Martha,Rosimeire Cristina Dalla
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Outros Autores: Tada,Mauro Sughiro, Ferreira,Ricardo Godoi de Mattos, Silva,Luiz Hildebrando Pereira da, Wunderlich,Gerhard
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz
• Texto Completo: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0074-02762007000300007
• topic: non-symptomatic malaria; Plasmodium falciparum; microsatellites; genotyping

In Western Amazon areas with perennial malaria transmission, long term residents frequently develop partial immunity to malarial infection caused either by Plasmodium falciparum or P. vivax, resulting in a considerable number of non-symptomatically infected individuals. For yet unknown reasons, these individuals sporadically develop symptomatic malaria. In order to identify if determined parasite genotypes, defined by a combination of eleven microsatellite markers, were associated to different outcomes - symptomatic or asymptomatic malaria - we analyzed infecting P. falciparum parasites in a suburban riverine population. Despite of detecting a high degree of diversity in the analyzed samples, several microsatellite marker alleles appeared accumulated in parasites from non-symptomatic infections. This result may be interpreted that a number of microsatellites, which are not directly related to antigenic features, could be associated to the outcome of malarial infection. The result may also point to a low frequency of recombinatorial events which otherwise would dissociate genes under strong immune pressure from the relatively neutral microsatellite loci.