Fitness costs of resistance to antimalarial drugs.
It has been recently reported that the prevalence of mutations associated with chloroquine resistance declined during the dry season. Fitness costs of drug resistance were suggested to be responsible for reduced survival of mutant parasites, and only parasites surviving chronic infections were transmitted at the onset of the rainy season. This implies that during seasonal transmission, significant changes can occur in allele frequency over the course of months, rather than years. The practical consequences of these findings for monitoring dynamics of drug-resistance markers are: (i) in areas of seasonal transmission, the sampling date matters; (ii) fluctuations in mutation frequencies might be explained by seasonality; and (iii) a much-awaited experimental determination of fitness costs of drug resistance becomes within reach.
Felger
Ingrid
I
Swiss Tropical Institute, Socinstrasse 57, CH 4002 Basel, Switzerland. ingrid.felger@unibas.ch
Beck
Hans-Peter
HP
D000818:Animals; D000962:Antimalarials / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D002648:Child; D004351:Drug Resistance / Q000235:genetics*; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D008288:Malaria / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000469:parasitology / Q000635:transmission; D010961:Plasmodium / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000235:genetics; D012621:Seasons
D000962:Antimalarials