Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15779-8
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Funding
- National Institutes of Health [R01AI107949, R01AI139520, K24AI134990, R21AI121465, F30AI143172, U19AI089680]
- Skills Development Fellowship - UK Medical Research Council (MRC)
- UK Department for International Development (DFID) under the MRC/DFID Concordat agreement
- European Union
- MRC [MR/R015600/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) harbors 11% of global malaria cases, yet little is known about the spatial and genetic structure of the parasite population in that country. We sequence 2537 Plasmodium falciparum infections, including a nationally representative population sample from DRC and samples from surrounding countries, using molecular inversion probes - a high-throughput genotyping tool. We identify an east-west divide in haplotypes known to confer resistance to chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine. Furthermore, we identify highly related parasites over large geographic distances, indicative of gene flow and migration. Our results are consistent with a background of isolation by distance combined with the effects of selection for antimalarial drug resistance. This study provides a high-resolution view of parasite genetic structure across a large country in Africa and provides a baseline to study how implementation programs may impact parasite populations. The genome of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum contains a record of past evolutionary forces. Here, using 2537 parasite sequences from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the authors demonstrate how drug pressure and human movement have shaped the present-day parasite population.
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