Origin of the Malaria Parasite

Slide 35 of 109

Depending upon which study one examines the Variant forms of a gene at a particular locus, or location, on a chromosome.alleles that confer malarial resistance arose either 120,000¹ or 3,000-12,000² year ago.

References

1. Mu, J., J. Duan, K. D. Makova, D. A. Joy, C. Q. Huynh, O. H. Branch, W. Li and X. Su. 2002. One of the threadlike "packages" of genes and other DNA in the nucleus of a cell. Different kinds of organisms have different numbers of chromosomes. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, 46 in all: 44 autosomes and two sex chromosomes. Each parent contributes one chromosome to each pair, so children get half of their chromosomes from their mothers and half from their fathers.Chromosome-wide Single nucleotide polymorphisms are a common, but minute, variations that occurs in human DNA at a frequency of one every 1,000 bases, often used to track inheritance.SNPs reveal an ancient origin for Plasmodium falciparum. Nature 418: 323–324.

2. Tishkoff, S.A., et al. 2001. Haplotype Diversity and Linkage Disequilibrium at Human G6PD: Recent Origin of Variant forms of a gene at a particular locus, or location, on a chromosome.AllelesThat Confer Malarial Resistance. Science 293: 455-462.