African thicket rat malaria linked to virulent human form
Monday, December 22, 2008 - 12:42
in Biology & Nature
Even though the most deadly form of malaria for humans, Plasmodium falciparum, has been linked to malaria found in chimpanzees, this group has been fairly isolated on the malarial family tree—until now. A new phylogenetic analysis from the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History reveals that malarial parasites found in tree-dwelling rats share a close evolutionary relationship with P. falciparum and Plasmodium reichenowi. The analysis is based on amplification of entire mitochondrial genomes of malarial parasites that use humans, rodents, birds, and lizards as their hosts.