Journal article
Implementing landscape genetics in molecular epidemiology to determine drivers of vector-borne disease: A malaria case study
Molecular ecology, v 32(8), pp 1848-1859
Apr 2023
PMID: 36645165
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
This study employs landscape genetics to investigate the environmental drivers of a deadly vector-borne disease, malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum, in a more spatially comprehensive manner than any previous work. With 1804 samples from 44 sites collected in western Kenya in 2012 and 2013, we performed resistance surface analysis to show that Lake Victoria acts as a barrier to transmission between areas north and south of the Winam Gulf. In addition, Mantel correlograms clearly showed significant correlations between genetic and geographic distance over short distances (less than 70 km). In both cases, we used an identity-by-state measure of relatedness tailored to find highly related individual parasites in order to focus on recent gene flow that is more relevant to disease transmission. To supplement these results, we performed conventional population genetics analyses, including Bayesian clustering methods and spatial ordination techniques. These analyses revealed some differentiation on the basis of geography and elevation and a cluster of genetic similarity in the lowlands north of the Winam Gulf of Lake Victoria. Taken as a whole, these results indicate low overall genetic differentiation in the Lake Victoria region, but with some separation of parasite populations north and south of the Winam Gulf that is explained by the presence of the lake as a geographic barrier to gene flow. We recommend similar landscape genetics analyses in future molecular epidemiology studies of vector-borne diseases to extend and contextualize the results of traditional population genetics.
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Details
- Title
- Implementing landscape genetics in molecular epidemiology to determine drivers of vector-borne disease: A malaria case study
- Creators
- Alfred Hubbard - University of North Carolina at CharlotteElizabeth Hemming-Schroeder - Colorado State UniversityMaxwell Gesuge Machani - Kenya Medical Research InstituteYaw Afrane - University of GhanaGuiyun Yan - University of California, IrvineEugenia Lo - University of North Carolina at CharlotteDaniel Janies - University of North Carolina at Charlotte
- Publication Details
- Molecular ecology, v 32(8), pp 1848-1859
- Grant note
- U19 AI129326 / NIH HHS R01 AI050243 / NIH HHS D43 TW001505 / NIH HHS
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Microbiology and Immunology
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000922536600001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85147353117
- Other Identifier
- 991022192518404721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
- Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology