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Microsatellite characterization of Plasmodium falciparum  from symptomatic and non-symptomatic infections from the Western Amazon reveals the existence of non-symptomatic infection-associated genotypes
Martha, Rosimeire Cristina dalla; Tada, Mauro Sughiro; de Mattos Ferreira, Ricardo Godoi; da Silva, Luiz Hildebrando Pereira & Wunderlich, Gerhard
Abstract
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.
Keywords
non-symptomatic malaria - Plasmodium falciparum - microsatellites - genotyping
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