AUTHOR=Cui Yan-Bing , Shen Hai-Mo , Chen Shen-Bo , Kassegne Kokouvi , Shi Tian-Qi , Xu Bin , Chen Jun-Hu , Wu Jia-Hong , Wang Yue 

TITLE=Genetic Diversity and Selection of Plasmodium vivax Apical Membrane Antigen-1 in China–Myanmar Border of Yunnan Province, China, 2009–2016

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

VOLUME=Volume 11 - 2021

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-and-infection-microbiology/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2021.742189

DOI=10.3389/fcimb.2021.742189

ISSN=2235-2988

ABSTRACT=Plasmodium vivax apical membrane antigen-1 (PvAMA-1) is an important vaccine candidate for vivax malaria. However, antigenic variation within PvAMA-1 is a major obstacle to the design of protective malaria vaccine. In this study, we analysed the genetic polymorphism and selection of the PvAMA-1 gene from 152 P. vivax isolates from imported cases to China, collected in the China-Myanmar border (CMB) area in Yunnan Province during 2009-2011 (n=71) and 2014-2016 (n=81), in comparison with PvAMA-1 gene information from Myanmar (n=73), collected from the public data. The overall nucleotide diversity of PvAMA-1 gene from the 152 CMB isolates was 0.007 with 76 haplotypes identified (Hd = 0.958). Results from the population structure suggested three groups among CMB and Myanmar isolates with optimized clusters value of K = 7. In addition, CMB (2014-2016) isolates generally lacked some K components that were commonly found in CMB (2009-2011) and Myanmar. Meanwhile, PvAMA-1 domain I is found to be the dominant target of positive diversifying selection and most mutation locus were found in domain I of CMB isolates. The mutation frequencies of D107N/A, R112K/T, K120R, E145A, E277K, and R438H in PvAMA-1 were more than 70% in the CMB isolates. In conclusion, high genetic diversity and positive selection were found in the PvAMA-1 gene from CMB isolates, which are instructive findings for the design and development of PvAMA-1-based malaria vaccine.