- Research news
- Open Access
Multigene family encoding malarial variance
https://doi.org/10.1186/gb-spotlight-20010418-01
© BioMed Central Ltd 2001
- Published: 18 April 2001
Keywords
- Immune System
- Sequence Analysis
- Severe Disease
- Variant Gene
- Southern Blotting
Plasmodium vivax is the most prevalent of the species of malarial parasite and causes severe disease, but unlike P. falciparum it is rarely fatal. In the 12 April Nature, Hernando del Portillo and colleagues of the Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil suggest a possible explanation for the difference in virulence between the two parasites.
Sequence analysis of a 155 kb yeast artificial chromosome clone from a P. vivax genomic library revealed a multigene family that is unique to P. vivax (Nature 2001, 410:839-842). Southern blotting showed that the genes - designated vir (P. vivax variant genes) - are present in 600-1,000 copies on possibly all 14 P. vivax chromosomes. Analysis of sera isolated from P. vivax patients indicated that each patient was infected with a parasite expressing a different VIR protein variant. This suggests that P. vivax is able to establish chronic infections by varying its appearance to the immune system.
References
- del Portillo HA, Fernandez-Becerra C, Bowman S, Oliver K, Preuss M, Sanchez CP, Schneider NK, Villalobos JM, Rajandream MA, Harris D: A superfamily of variant genes encoded in the subtelomeric region of Plasmodium vivax. Nature 2001, 410:839-842., [http://www.nature.com/nature]
- Universidade de Sao Paulo, [http://www.usp.br/index.html]
