Journal article
Divergent evolutionary constraints on mitochondrial and nuclear genomes of malaria parasites
Molecular and biochemical parasitology, v 95(1), pp 69-80
1998
PMID: 9763290
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Genetic variation among malaria parasites has important consequences with regard to drug resistance, pathogenicity, immunity, transmission, and speciation. In this regard, malaria parasites have been shown to display a high degree of inter- and intra-species genetic divergence. The nuclear genomes of
Plasmodium falciparum,
Plasmodium yoelii, and
Plasmodium gallinaceum are vastly divergent yet share a similar codon usage and total A/T content of ≈82%. This is in contrast to other primate-specific species including
P. vivax which have an A/T content of ≈67%. To assess the effects of this evolutionary divergence on the conservation of gene content, organization, and codon usage in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of malaria parasites, we have cloned and sequenced the mitochondrial genome of
Plasmodium vivax, and compared it with the mtDNAs of
P. falciparum,
P. yoelii, and
P. gallinaceum. The
P. vivax mitochondrial genome was found to be 5990 base pairs in length, and displayed a gene organization identical to that of
P. falciparum,
P. yoelii, and
P. gallinaceum. Furthermore, there was a remarkable 90% conservation of sequence identity between the mitochondrial genomes of all four species. As an example of intra-species conservation, comparison of mtDNAs from two independently cloned
P. falciparum isolates, Malay Camp and C10, revealed only a single nucleotide substitution. A/T content of the
P. vivax mitochondrial genome was found to be identical to other species of
Plasmodium, hence, we have postulated that the mitochondrial genomes of malaria parasites were refractory to the evolutionary shifts in nucleotide content seen among the nuclear genomes of malaria parasites. Among different
Plasmodium species, the second position of mitochondrial codons were found to be the least prone to substitutions and displayed a significant bias in pyrimidines. These aspects of mitochondrial codon usage were distinct from the nuclear genome and may reflect functional aspects of decoding by the mitochondrial translational system.
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Details
- Title
- Divergent evolutionary constraints on mitochondrial and nuclear genomes of malaria parasites
- Creators
- Michael T McIntoshRanjana SrivastavaAkhil B Vaidya
- Publication Details
- Molecular and biochemical parasitology, v 95(1), pp 69-80
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Microbiology and Immunology
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000075980700007
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-0032169951
- Other Identifier
- 991014877675704721
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InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
- Parasitology