Franck Prugnolle; Patrick Durand; Benjamin Ollomo; Linda Duval; Frédéric Ariey; Céline Arnathau; Jean-Paul Gonzalez; Eric Leroy; François Renaud

“ Risk of Emergence: Human Invaded or Human Invader
The recent discovery of P. falciparum in bonobos [16] , chimpanzees [17] , and gorillas [15] , [17] as well as P. ovale, P. malariae, and P. vivax in chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas [16] , [17] , [31] , [32] highlights the risk of transfer of Plasmodium species from human to primates and vice versa. It is now urgent to identify the genetic and ecological factors that allow this group of pathogens to exploit a variety of host species. ”

“ In the genus Plasmodium, four species are traditionally regarded as human parasites: Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium ovale, Plasmodium vivax, and Plasmodium falciparum. These species are remotely related to each other, suggesting that adaptation to humans has occurred several times independently during the history of the genus. ”

“ From their results, they conclude the existence of six Plasmodium species belonging to the Laverania subgenus, three in chimpanzees (they called them C1–C3) and three in gorillas (referred to as G1–G3) . All these species were previously described, but by the greater depth of sampling, this study gives a more definitive picture of the diversity of the Laverania species infecting great apes. In particular, this study confirms the existence of a large diversity of P. falciparum–related parasites in gorillas but does not find any in natural populations of chimpanzees or bonobos. ”

“ Update on the Diversity of Plasmodium Circulating in African Great Apes...
Thanks to the complementarity between the different studies, in terms of the geographic areas and host species and subspecies sampled, a clear picture of the partitions existing within the Laverania lineage now emerges. Figure 1 presents phylogenies of the Laverania subgenus obtained from partial CytB sequences extracted from several of the previously reported studies (methods used to construct the phylogeny are as those presented in Prugnolle et al. [15] ; see also the Figure 1 legend for more details) . ”

“ Ollomo, B & Ayala, FJ (2010) , African great apes are natural hosts of multiple related malaria species, including Plasmodium falciparum., vol. 107, pp. 1458–1463, 20133889, pmid:20133889 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Krief, S; Escalante, AA; Pacheco, MA; Mugisha, L & Andre, C (2010) , On the diversity of malaria parasites in African apes and the origin of Plasmodium falciparum from bonobos., vol. ”

“ Perkins, SL & Schall, JJ (2008) , A three-genome phylogeny of malaria parasites (Plasmodium and closely related genera) : evolution of life-history traits and host switches., vol. 47, pp. 261–273, 18248741, pmid:18248741 1 2 3 Escalante, AA & Ayala, FJ (1994) , Phylogeny of the malarial genus Plasmodium, derived from rRNA gene sequences., vol. 91, pp. 11373–11377, 7972067, pmid:7972067 ↑ Ayala, FJ; Escalante, AA & Rich, SM (1999) , Evolution of Plasmodium and the recent origin of the world populations of Plasmodium falciparum., vol. ”