Study identifies drug resistance loci in Plasmodium falciparum

29 Jan 2015
WWARN Published Date

Using a combination of sequence-based genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and in vitro selection tests, researchers have detected several loci associated with antimalarial resistance in Plasmodium falciparum. While some loci represent known signals — pfcrt, dhfr, and pfmdr1 — many of the genes were not previously implicated in resistance.
 
The findings, based on the analysis of data from 45 Senegalese parasites, were reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Reference: Park DJ, Lukens AK, Neafsey DE, Schaffner SF, et al. Sequence-based association and selection scans identify drug resistance loci in the Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2012 Jul 23; doi: 10.1073/pnas.1210585109; PMID: 22826220.