title: Patterns and dynamics of genetic diversity in Plasmodium falciparum: what past human migrations tell us about malaria.
abstract: Plasmodium falciparum is the main agent of malaria, one of the major human infectious diseases affecting millions of people worldwide. The genetic diversity of P. falciparum populations is an essential factor in the parasite's ability to adapt to changes in its environment, enabling the development of drug resistance and the evasion from the host immune system through antigenic variation. Therefore, characterizing these patterns and understanding the main drivers of the pathogen's genetic diversity can provide useful inputs for informing control strategies. In this paper, we review the pioneering work led by Professor Kazuyuki Tanabe on the genetic diversity of P. falciparum populations. In a first part, we recall basic results from population genetics for quantifying within-population genetic diversity, and discuss the main mechanisms driving this diversity. Then, we show how these approaches have been used for reconstructing the historical spread of malaria worldwide, and how current patterns of genetic diversity suggest that the pathogen followed our ancestors in their journey out of Africa. Because these results are robust to different types of genetic markers, they provide a baseline for predicting the pathogen's diversity in unsampled populations, and some useful elements for predicting vaccine efficacy and informing malaria control strategies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Cellular Parasitology, Juntendo University School of Medicine, 2-1-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8421, Japan; Department of International Affairs and Tropical Medicine, Tokyo Women's Medical University School of Medicine, 8-1 Kawada-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8666, Japan. Electronic address: tmita@juntendo.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Toshihiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mita
authors.affiliation: MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Imperial College, London W2 1PG, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Thibaut
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jombart
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D000940:Antigenic Variation; D004777:Environment; D014644:Genetic Variation; D063426:Human Migration; D006801:Humans; D016778:Malaria, Falciparum / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000469:parasitology*; D010963:Plasmodium falciparum / Q000235:genetics*; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic
keywords: Bottleneck; Genetic diversity; Malaria; Migration; Plasmodium falciparum; Population structure