A Fresh Look at the Origin of Plasmodium falciparum, the Most Malignant Malaria Agent

Abstract

From which host did the most malignant human malaria come: birds, primates, or rodents? When did the transfer occur? Over the last half century, these have been some of the questions up for debate about the origin of Plasmodium falciparum, the most common and deadliest human malaria parasite, which is responsible for at least one million deaths every year. Recent findings bring elements in favor of a transfer from great apes, but are these evidences really solid? What are the grey areas that remain to be clarified? Here, we examine in depth these new elements and discuss how they modify our perception of the origin and evolution of P. falciparum. We also discuss the perspectives these new discoveries open.

Citation: Prugnolle F, Durand P, Ollomo B, Duval L, Ariey F, et al. (2011) A Fresh Look at the Origin of Plasmodium falciparum, the Most Malignant Malaria Agent. PLoS Pathog 7(2): e1001283. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1001283

Editor: Marianne Manchester, University of California San Diego, United States of America

Published: February 24, 2011

Copyright: © 2011 Prugnolle et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The authors were supported by ANR MGANE SEST 012 2009, Programme CNRS MIE 2009. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

In the genus Plasmodium, four species are traditionally regarded as human parasites: Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium ovale, Plasmodium vivax, and Plasmodium falciparum. These species are remotely related to each other, suggesting that adaptation to humans has occurred several times independently during the history of the genus. It is still unclear, however, when these associations began and from where they came [1]. The origin of P. falciparum, in particular, continues to be a highly debated topic.

Early molecular phylogenetic studies on the genus Plasmodium showed that P. falciparum clustered with two avian parasites rather than with those infecting mammals, thus suggesting that P. falciparum was the result of a transfer from birds to humans [2], [3]. According to the authors, this transfer...