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Genetic Diversity in New Members of the Reticulocyte Binding Protein Family in Thai Plasmodium vivax Isolates
BACKGROUND: Plasmodium vivax merozoites specifically invade reticulocytes. Until recently, two reticulocyte-binding proteins (Pvrbp1 and Pvrbp2) expressed at the apical pole of the P. vivax merozoite were considered to be involved in reticulocyte recognition. The genome sequence recently obtained fo...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2012
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293883/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22403626 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0032105 |
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author | Kosaisavee, Varakorn Lek-Uthai, Usa Suwanarusk, Rossarin Grüner, Anne Charlotte Russell, Bruce Nosten, Francois Rénia, Laurent Snounou, Georges |
author_facet | Kosaisavee, Varakorn Lek-Uthai, Usa Suwanarusk, Rossarin Grüner, Anne Charlotte Russell, Bruce Nosten, Francois Rénia, Laurent Snounou, Georges |
author_sort | Kosaisavee, Varakorn |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Plasmodium vivax merozoites specifically invade reticulocytes. Until recently, two reticulocyte-binding proteins (Pvrbp1 and Pvrbp2) expressed at the apical pole of the P. vivax merozoite were considered to be involved in reticulocyte recognition. The genome sequence recently obtained for the Salvador I (Sal-I) strain of P. vivax revealed additional genes in this family, and in particular Pvrbp2a, Pvrbp2b (Pvrbp2 has been renamed as Pvrbp2c) and two pseudogenes Pvrbp2d and Pvrbp3. It had been previously found that Pvrbp2c is substantially more polymorphic than Pvrbp1. The primary goal of this study was to ascertain the level of polymorphism of these new genes. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The sequence of the Pvrbp2a, Pvrbp2b, Pvrbp2d and Pvrbp3 genes were obtained by amplification/cloning using DNA purified from four isolates collected from patients that acquired the infection in the four cardinal regions of Thailand (west, north, south and east). An additional seven isolates from western Thailand were analyzed for gene copy number variation. There were significant polymorphisms exhibited by these genes (compared to the reference Sal-I strain) with the ratio of mutations leading to a non-synonymous or synonymous amino acid change close to 3∶1 for Pvrbp2a and Pvrbp2b. Although the degree of polymorphism exhibited by these two genes was higher than that of Pvrbp1, it did not reach the exceptional diversity noted for Pvrbp2c. It was interesting to note that variations in the copy number of Pvrbp2a and Pvrbp2b occurred in some isolates. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The evolution of different members of the Pvrbp2 family and their relatively high degree of polymorphism suggests that the proteins encoded by these genes are important for parasite survival and are under immune selection. Our data also shows that there are highly conserved regions in rbp2a and rbp2b, which might provide suitable targets for future vaccine development against the blood stage of P. vivax. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3293883 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-32938832012-03-08 Genetic Diversity in New Members of the Reticulocyte Binding Protein Family in Thai Plasmodium vivax Isolates Kosaisavee, Varakorn Lek-Uthai, Usa Suwanarusk, Rossarin Grüner, Anne Charlotte Russell, Bruce Nosten, Francois Rénia, Laurent Snounou, Georges PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Plasmodium vivax merozoites specifically invade reticulocytes. Until recently, two reticulocyte-binding proteins (Pvrbp1 and Pvrbp2) expressed at the apical pole of the P. vivax merozoite were considered to be involved in reticulocyte recognition. The genome sequence recently obtained for the Salvador I (Sal-I) strain of P. vivax revealed additional genes in this family, and in particular Pvrbp2a, Pvrbp2b (Pvrbp2 has been renamed as Pvrbp2c) and two pseudogenes Pvrbp2d and Pvrbp3. It had been previously found that Pvrbp2c is substantially more polymorphic than Pvrbp1. The primary goal of this study was to ascertain the level of polymorphism of these new genes. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The sequence of the Pvrbp2a, Pvrbp2b, Pvrbp2d and Pvrbp3 genes were obtained by amplification/cloning using DNA purified from four isolates collected from patients that acquired the infection in the four cardinal regions of Thailand (west, north, south and east). An additional seven isolates from western Thailand were analyzed for gene copy number variation. There were significant polymorphisms exhibited by these genes (compared to the reference Sal-I strain) with the ratio of mutations leading to a non-synonymous or synonymous amino acid change close to 3∶1 for Pvrbp2a and Pvrbp2b. Although the degree of polymorphism exhibited by these two genes was higher than that of Pvrbp1, it did not reach the exceptional diversity noted for Pvrbp2c. It was interesting to note that variations in the copy number of Pvrbp2a and Pvrbp2b occurred in some isolates. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The evolution of different members of the Pvrbp2 family and their relatively high degree of polymorphism suggests that the proteins encoded by these genes are important for parasite survival and are under immune selection. Our data also shows that there are highly conserved regions in rbp2a and rbp2b, which might provide suitable targets for future vaccine development against the blood stage of P. vivax. Public Library of Science 2012-03-05 /pmc/articles/PMC3293883/ /pubmed/22403626 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0032105 Text en Kosaisavee 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 Kosaisavee, Varakorn Lek-Uthai, Usa Suwanarusk, Rossarin Grüner, Anne Charlotte Russell, Bruce Nosten, Francois Rénia, Laurent Snounou, Georges Genetic Diversity in New Members of the Reticulocyte Binding Protein Family in Thai Plasmodium vivax Isolates |
title | Genetic Diversity in New Members of the Reticulocyte Binding Protein Family in Thai Plasmodium vivax Isolates |
title_full | Genetic Diversity in New Members of the Reticulocyte Binding Protein Family in Thai Plasmodium vivax Isolates |
title_fullStr | Genetic Diversity in New Members of the Reticulocyte Binding Protein Family in Thai Plasmodium vivax Isolates |
title_full_unstemmed | Genetic Diversity in New Members of the Reticulocyte Binding Protein Family in Thai Plasmodium vivax Isolates |
title_short | Genetic Diversity in New Members of the Reticulocyte Binding Protein Family in Thai Plasmodium vivax Isolates |
title_sort | genetic diversity in new members of the reticulocyte binding protein family in thai plasmodium vivax isolates |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293883/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22403626 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0032105 |
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