Abstract
SUMMARY Malaria remains one of the most significant global public health burdens, with nearly half of the world's population at risk of infection. Malaria is not however a monolithic disease - it can be caused by multiple different parasite species of the Plasmodium genus, each of which can induce different symptoms and pathology, and which pose quite different challenges for control. Furthermore, malaria is in no way restricted to humans. There are Plasmodium species that have adapted to infect most warm-blooded vertebrate species, and the genus as a whole is both highly successful and highly diverse. How, where and when human malaria parasites originated from within this diversity has long been a subject of fascination and sometimes also controversy. The past decade has seen the publication of a number of important discoveries about malaria parasite origins, all based on the application of molecular diagnostic tools to new sources of samples. This review summarizes some of those recent discoveries and discusses their implication for our current understanding of the origin and evolution of the Plasmodium genus. The nature of these discoveries and the manner in which they are made are then used to lay out a series of opportunities and challenges for the next wave of parasite hunters.
Highlights
What is missing in the current surveys? In terms of the broader context of apicomplexan origins, the link between coral reefs and photosynthetic relatives of apicomplexans is helpful, but our understanding of these coral communities remains rudimentary
We have not even begun to sample the diversity of non-photosynthetic apicomplexan relatives, colpodellid predators, which inhabit a range of environments, so we should not be restricted to focusing on coral
In terms of Plasmodium there is clearly much more to discover in African apes, with P. vivax, P. ovale and Plasmodium malariae-related parasites all detected, but their relationship to the human counterparts not yet understood (Duval et al 2009; Hayakawa et al 2009; Prugnolle et al 2013)
Summary
Malaria remains one of the most significant global public health burdens, with nearly half of the world’s population at risk of infection. How, where and when human malaria parasites originated from within this diversity has long been a subject of fascination and sometimes controversy. This review summarizes some of those recent discoveries and discusses their implication for our current understanding of the origin and evolution of the Plasmodium genus. The nature of these discoveries and the manner in which they are made are used to lay out a series of opportunities and challenges for the wave of parasite hunters
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