Genetic, diversity and evolutionary history of Plasmodium falciparum and P-vivax

Understanding the genetic diversity and evolutionary history of the malaria parasite and how it is genetically distinct in different regions of the genome and populations, may open up new avenues to population-specific malaria control measures. The two principal human malaria parasites, Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax, seem to be very different in origin and in phylogenetic resemblance to other species of Plasmodium. Further, the mortality and morbidity that these two parasites express are quite different, so also the percentage of nucleotide composition in their respective genomes. However, the net genetic diversity at the molecular level (in different independent genes and in both nuclear and mitochondrial genomes) seems to have very little differences, with P. vivax at a slightly higher scale. Whereas African populations of P. falciparum are highly diverse at the DNA level among other populations, high genetic diversity was found in Asian P. vivax; clearly depicting that P. falciparum has possibly originated in Africa and P. vivax in Asia. Furthermore, the findings of a comparably higher genomic diversity in P. vivax corroborate to earlier hypothesis of being older than P. falciparum and also a close genetic affinity with the malaria parasite species of Asian monkeys. On the other hand, P. falciparum is genetically much similar to the chimpanzee malaria parasite, P. reichenowi. The advancements in genomics and parallel statistical analyses of the DNA sequence data so far have succeeded in revealing new evolutionary information on the parasite genes and populations and generate renewed hopes for effective and common vaccines for both forms of malaria.