The conquest of the Americas by malaria parasites: a population genomic view

The Americas were the last continent to be colonized by modern humans, approximately 15,000 years ago, but human Plasmodia – Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax and P. malariae – are thought to have arrived much later. Most of the available evidence suggests that malaria was introduced to the Americas after the European conquest – by settlers from Portugal and Spain, where malaria was then endemic, and, most notably, by the transatlantic slave trade from Africa. Once in the Americas, P. vivax and P. malariae managed to adapt to new vertebrate hosts, New World platyrrhine monkeys, originating the sister species P. simium and P. brasilianum, respectively. This project will employ standardized population approaches to genomic data from three species to address the following questions: (a) Can one infer the relative contribution of different regions of origin to current parasite populations in the Americas? (b) Are the genomic sequence data consistent with similar dates and routes of introduction and dispersal in the Americas for all three human malaria parasites? (c) Is there evidence of population bottlenecks during parasite adaptation to new local vectors and vertebrate hosts on arrival in the New World? (d) Are there genomic signatures of adaptation to platyrrhine monkeys after the host switch that originated P. simium and P. brasilianum?

Project Details

Epidemiology
Genetics and Genomics

Jan 2023 — Dec 2024

Brazil