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Genomic representation of var gene sequences in Plasmodium falciparum field isolates from different geographic regions1

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Acknowledgements

This paper is published with the permission of the Director of KEMRI. The work received financial support from KEMRI, the UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) and the Wellcome Trust. Vanuatu field isolates were kindly provided by Dr Mary Ganczakowski of the Oxford-Vanuatu Malaria Anaemia Study. Dr Gareth Turner provided samples from Vietnam, which were taken with the help of the staff at Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Centre, Centre for

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Cited by (57)

  • A systematic review on genetic diversity of var gene DBL1α domain from different geographical regions in Plasmodium falciparum isolates

    2021, Infection, Genetics and Evolution
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    The group A var gene mediates the adhesion of infected erythrocytes (IE) to uninfected erythrocytes, as seen in rosetting (McQuaid and Rowe, 2020; Vigan-Womas et al., 2008). The amino terminal of DBL domain is the most conserved in flanking region with highly diverse inner regions like DBL1α domain which has been the main target for various genetic diversity studies (Kyes et al., 1997; Ward et al., 1999). In this review we have compared the DBL1α diversity from different global geographic regions.

  • Frequent recombination events generate diversity within the multi-copy variant antigen gene families of Plasmodium falciparum

    2008, International Journal for Parasitology
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    The complete sequencing and annotation of the entire genome for the 3D7 isolate (Gardner et al., 2002), as well as additional sequencing projects for several other isolates, have shown that the var gene sequences possessed by any given parasite are extremely diverse, although certain subfamilies of var genes can be identified based on the structure of several domains within the encoded PfEMP1 (Lavstsen et al., 2003; Kraemer and Smith, 2003; Robinson et al., 2003; Kraemer et al., 2007). In addition, sampling of var gene repertoires from parasites isolated from geographically distant regions has shown that the diversity that exists when comparing the var gene complement between different field isolates is immense, suggesting that var genes possess a mechanism for creating sequence changes at an accelerated rate (Kyes et al., 1997; Fowler et al., 2002; Barry et al., 2007; Kraemer et al., 2007). This is in contrast to housekeeping genes which have been shown to be highly conserved between strains from different geographical regions (Jeffares et al., 2007; Mu et al., 2007; Volkman et al., 2007).

  • Malaria: a peek at the var variorum

    2007, Trends in Parasitology
    Citation Excerpt :

    It should be noted, however, that whereas these primers amplify DBL-α sequences from the vast majority of var genes, certain sequences, most notably that of the gene associated with pregnancy-associated malaria (var2csa), are not efficiently amplified using this strategy and thus must be considered separately [8]. To explore the complexity of the global var gene repertoire, Barry et al. obtained 895 DBL-α types culled from a global dataset of 1088 sequences (480 of the 895 DBL-α types were taken from the GenBank database), a much larger sample than available from previous studies [3–6]. Their parasite isolates differed not only geographically, but also temporally.

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Note: Nucleotide sequences for data reported in this paper are in the EMBL, GenBank™ and DDJB databases under the accession numbers Z94724–Z94751.

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