Matched Placental and Circulating Plasmodium falciparum Parasites are Genetically Homologous at the var2csa ID1-DBL2X Locus by Deep Sequencing

Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2018 Jan;98(1):77-82. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.17-0529.

Abstract

In pregnancy-associated malaria, infected erythrocytes accumulate in the placenta. It is unclear if in polyclonal infections this results in distinct peripheral and placental parasite populations. We used long amplicon deep sequencing of Plasmodium falciparum var2csa ID1-DBL2X from 15 matched peripheral and placental samples collected at delivery from a high transmission area to determine genetic homology. Despite substantial sequence variation and detecting 23 haplotypes, the matched pairs mostly contained the same genetic variants, with 11 pairs sharing 100% of their variants, whereas others showed some heterogeneity. Thus, at delivery, peripheral and placental parasites appear to intermix and placental genotypes can be inferred through peripheral sampling.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Antigens, Protozoan / genetics*
  • DNA, Protozoan / genetics
  • Female
  • Haplotypes / genetics
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
  • Humans
  • Malaria, Falciparum / complications
  • Malaria, Falciparum / parasitology
  • Placenta / parasitology*
  • Plasmodium falciparum / genetics*
  • Pregnancy
  • Pregnancy Complications, Parasitic / blood
  • Pregnancy Complications, Parasitic / parasitology

Substances

  • Antigens, Protozoan
  • DNA, Protozoan
  • VAR2CSA protein, Plasmodium falciparum