title: Mitochondrial genes support a common origin of rodent malaria parasites and Plasmodium falciparum's relatives infecting great apes.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Plasmodium falciparum is responsible for the most acute form of human malaria. Most recent studies demonstrate that it belongs to a monophyletic lineage specialized in the infection of great ape hosts. Several other Plasmodium species cause human malaria. They all belong to another distinct lineage of parasites which infect a wider range of primate species. All known mammalian malaria parasites appear to be monophyletic. Their clade includes the two previous distinct lineages of parasites of primates and great apes, one lineage of rodent parasites, and presumably Hepatocystis species. Plasmodium falciparum and great ape parasites are commonly thought to be the sister-group of all other mammal-infecting malaria parasites. However, some studies supported contradictory origins and found parasites of great apes to be closer to those of rodents, or to those of other primates.
  
  
  RESULTS
  To distinguish between these mutually exclusive hypotheses on the origin of Plasmodium falciparum and its great ape infecting relatives, we performed a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis based on a data set of three mitochondrial genes from 33 to 84 malaria parasites. We showed that malarial mitochondrial genes have evolved slowly and are compositionally homogeneous. We estimated their phylogenetic relationships using Bayesian and maximum-likelihood methods. Inferred trees were checked for their robustness to the (i) site selection, (ii) assumptions of various probabilistic models, and (iii) taxon sampling. Our results robustly support a common ancestry of rodent parasites and Plasmodium falciparum's relatives infecting great apes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results refute the most common view of the origin of great ape malaria parasites, and instead demonstrate the robustness of a less well-established phylogenetic hypothesis, under which Plasmodium falciparum and its relatives infecting great apes are closely related to rodent parasites. This study sheds light on the evolutionary history of Plasmodium falciparum, a major issue for human health.
authors.affiliation: Méthodes et Algorithmes pour la Bioinformatique, LIRMM, UMR 5506, CNRS-Université de Montpellier 2, Montpellier, France. samuel.blanquart@inria.fr
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Blanquart
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Gascuel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D016054:DNA, Protozoan / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D050259:Genes, Mitochondrial; D054629:Genome, Mitochondrial; D015186:Hominidae / Q000469:parasitology*; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008288:Malaria / Q000469:parasitology; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010802:Phylogeny; D010963:Plasmodium falciparum / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D016054:DNA, Protozoan