%0 Journal Article
%T Timing the origin of human malarias: the lemur puzzle
%A M Andre¨ªna Pacheco
%A Fabia U Battistuzzi
%A Randall E Junge
%A Omar E Cornejo
%A Cathy V Williams
%A Irene Landau
%A Lydia Rabetafika
%A Georges Snounou
%A Lisa Jones-Engel
%A Ananias A Escalante
%J BMC Evolutionary Biology
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2148-11-299
%X We reject the assumption that the Plasmodium mitochondrial genome, as a unit or each gene separately, evolves at a constant rate. Our analyses show that Lemuroidea parasites are a monophyletic group that shares a common ancestor with all Catarrhini malarias except those related to P. falciparum. However, we found no evidence that this group of parasites branched with their hosts early in the evolution of primates. We applied relaxed clock methods and different calibrations points to explore the origin of primate malarias including those found in African apes. We showed that previous studies likely underestimated the origin of malarial parasites in primates.The use of fossils from the host as absolute calibration and the assumption of a strict clock likely underestimate time when performing molecular dating analyses on malarial parasites. Indeed, by exploring different calibration points, we found that the time for the radiation of primate parasites may have taken place in the Eocene, a time consistent with the radiation of African anthropoids. The radiation of the four human parasite lineages was part of such events. The time frame estimated in this investigation, together with our phylogenetic analyses, made plausible a scenario where gorillas and humans acquired malaria from a Pan lineage.Human malaria has been long recognized as a major global health problem. Malaria is caused by parasitic protozoa belonging to the genus Plasmodium, a diverse group with a broad range of vertebrate hosts, including reptiles, birds, and mammals. The known Plasmodium species found in mammals are mostly restricted to primates primarily from Africa and Southeast Asia, as well as a handful of Plasmodium species parasitic to African rodents. There are four species commonly found in humans; however, they are not a monophyletic group but rather part of two distinct clades of primate malarias indicating independent origins as human parasites. One clade includes P. falciparum together with
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/11/299