Allelic variation of msp-3 α gene in Plasmodium vivax isolates and its correlation with the severity of disease in vivax malaria.

This study aims to correlate the severity of clinical symptoms with parasite load, genotype of P. vivax and multiplicity of infection. Based on clinical symptoms classification, 31 (67.9%) out of 46 cases were found to be severe while 15 (32.6%) were non-severe and correlation of the severity of vivax infection with parasite load was not observed. Analysis of msp3-α allele genotype showed that out of 31 severe cases, 19 (61.2%) were single-clone infection cases whereas 12 (38.7%) were multi-clone infections. Similarly, out of 15 non-severe cases, 9 (60%) were single clone and 6 (40%) were multi-clone infections indicating the absence of a correlation between the multiplicity of infection and disease severity. Allele frequency observed was 65.9%, 23.4%, 23.4%, and 28.2% for allele A, B, C and D, respectively. An important finding was the greater distribution of allele D than alleles B and C, which has been reported as a rare allele otherwise. Further, of 13 cases with allele D, 76.9% (10/13) cases were severe. This study showed the absence of a correlation between the severity of clinical symptoms with parasite load and multiplicity of infection but at the same time drives a possibility of severe vivax malarial symptoms to have an association with the persistence of allele D in the population. This upon exploration can lead to the development of a target in detection of severe cases of malaria. PMID: 32896637 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Infection, Genetics and Evolution - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Tags: Infect Genet Evol Source Type: research