Abstract
Background: Genetic diversity in Plasmodium falciparum populations is of major importance in the outcome of antimalarial drug trialsand vaccine design. Merozoite surface protein-1 (msp 1) and msp 2 are well known antigenic markers for distinguishing persistent and new infections with P. falciparum. Methods: Parasite DNA was extracted from one hundred blood samples collected from patients confirmed by microscopy to be P. falciparum-positive followed by PCR-genotyping for msp 1 (block2) and msp 2 (block 3) allelic families. Results: All the families of msp 1 locus (K1, MAD20 and R033) and msp 2 (FC27 and 3D7) were observed. K1 was the most predominant msp 1 allelic family (60/100) followed by MAD20 (50/100) while R033 had the least frequency (45/100). In the msp 2 locus, FC27 showed higher frequency (62/100) than 3D7 (55/100). The allelic families existed alone and/or in combination with other families. However, no R033/MAD20 combination was observed. Multiplicity of Infection (MOI) with msp 1 was higher in Ikorodu (1.50) than in Lekki (1.39) while MOI with msp 2 was lower in Ikorodu (1.14) than in Lekki (1.76). There was however no significant difference in the mean MOI between the two study areas (P=0.427). Conclusion: The observation of limited parasite diversity may signal the need for the use of less subjective genotyping tools in distinguishing recrudescence and reinfections with P. falciparum during drug trials.
Highlights
Malaria still remains an important public health disease in the tropical parts of the world especially in the African continent
Molecular genotyping of pre-treatment and recurrent infections enables the categorisation of recurrent parasites as recrudescent or re-infection either from pre-existing infection or a new infection from an infected mosquito bite since the probability of a patient to be newly infected with a parasite possessing an identical genotype to the former infection is low [9]
Formsp 2, dimorphic infections with both 3D7 and FC27 allele types were detected among the isolates
Summary
Malaria still remains an important public health disease in the tropical parts of the world especially in the African continent. In order to track the efficacy of existing antimalarial drugs, therapeutic efficacy trials are carried out over a follow-up period [8]. Comparing the genotypes of established antigenic markers (merozoite-surface proteins, msp 1 and 2) at baseline and at the time of parasite recurrence is expected to discriminate between recrudescent and new infections [10]. Genetic diversity in Plasmodium falciparum populations is of major importance in the outcome of antimalarial drug trialsand vaccine design. Merozoite surface protein-1 (msp 1) and msp 2 are well known antigenic markers for distinguishing persistent and new infections with P. falciparum
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