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Testing in Mice the Hypothesis That Melanin Is Protective in Malaria Infections

Malaria has had the largest impact of any infectious disease on shaping the human genome, exerting enormous selective pressure on genes that improve survival in severe malaria infections. Modern humans originated in Africa and lost skin melanization as they migrated to temperate regions of the globe...

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Autores principales: Waisberg, Michael, Vickers, Brandi K., Yager, Stephanie B., Lin, Christina K., Pierce, Susan K.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3252320/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22242171
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029493
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author Waisberg, Michael
Vickers, Brandi K.
Yager, Stephanie B.
Lin, Christina K.
Pierce, Susan K.
author_facet Waisberg, Michael
Vickers, Brandi K.
Yager, Stephanie B.
Lin, Christina K.
Pierce, Susan K.
author_sort Waisberg, Michael
collection PubMed
description Malaria has had the largest impact of any infectious disease on shaping the human genome, exerting enormous selective pressure on genes that improve survival in severe malaria infections. Modern humans originated in Africa and lost skin melanization as they migrated to temperate regions of the globe. Although it is well documented that loss of melanization improved cutaneous Vitamin D synthesis, melanin plays an evolutionary ancient role in insect immunity to malaria and in some instances melanin has been implicated to play an immunoregulatory role in vertebrates. Thus, we tested the hypothesis that melanization may be protective in malaria infections using mouse models. Congenic C57BL/6 mice that differed only in the gene encoding tyrosinase, a key enzyme in the synthesis of melanin, showed no difference in the clinical course of infection by Plasmodium yoelii 17XL, that causes severe anemia, Plasmodium berghei ANKA, that causes severe cerebral malaria or Plasmodium chabaudi AS that causes uncomplicated chronic disease. Moreover, neither genetic deficiencies in vitamin D synthesis nor vitamin D supplementation had an effect on survival in cerebral malaria. Taken together, these results indicate that neither melanin nor vitamin D production improve survival in severe malaria.
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spelling pubmed-32523202012-01-12 Testing in Mice the Hypothesis That Melanin Is Protective in Malaria Infections Waisberg, Michael Vickers, Brandi K. Yager, Stephanie B. Lin, Christina K. Pierce, Susan K. PLoS One Research Article Malaria has had the largest impact of any infectious disease on shaping the human genome, exerting enormous selective pressure on genes that improve survival in severe malaria infections. Modern humans originated in Africa and lost skin melanization as they migrated to temperate regions of the globe. Although it is well documented that loss of melanization improved cutaneous Vitamin D synthesis, melanin plays an evolutionary ancient role in insect immunity to malaria and in some instances melanin has been implicated to play an immunoregulatory role in vertebrates. Thus, we tested the hypothesis that melanization may be protective in malaria infections using mouse models. Congenic C57BL/6 mice that differed only in the gene encoding tyrosinase, a key enzyme in the synthesis of melanin, showed no difference in the clinical course of infection by Plasmodium yoelii 17XL, that causes severe anemia, Plasmodium berghei ANKA, that causes severe cerebral malaria or Plasmodium chabaudi AS that causes uncomplicated chronic disease. Moreover, neither genetic deficiencies in vitamin D synthesis nor vitamin D supplementation had an effect on survival in cerebral malaria. Taken together, these results indicate that neither melanin nor vitamin D production improve survival in severe malaria. Public Library of Science 2012-01-05 /pmc/articles/PMC3252320/ /pubmed/22242171 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029493 Text en Waisberg et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Waisberg, Michael
Vickers, Brandi K.
Yager, Stephanie B.
Lin, Christina K.
Pierce, Susan K.
Testing in Mice the Hypothesis That Melanin Is Protective in Malaria Infections
title Testing in Mice the Hypothesis That Melanin Is Protective in Malaria Infections
title_full Testing in Mice the Hypothesis That Melanin Is Protective in Malaria Infections
title_fullStr Testing in Mice the Hypothesis That Melanin Is Protective in Malaria Infections
title_full_unstemmed Testing in Mice the Hypothesis That Melanin Is Protective in Malaria Infections
title_short Testing in Mice the Hypothesis That Melanin Is Protective in Malaria Infections
title_sort testing in mice the hypothesis that melanin is protective in malaria infections
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3252320/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22242171
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029493
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