Exposing malaria in-host diversity and estimating population diversity by capture-recapture using massively parallel pyrosequencing.

ABSTRACT: Malaria infections commonly contain multiple genetically distinct variants. Mathematical and animal models suggest that interactions among these variants have a profound impact on the emergence of drug resistance. However, methods currently used for quantifying parasite diversity in individual infections are insensitive to low-abundance variants and are not quantitative for variant population sizes. To more completely describe the in-host complexity and ecology of malaria infections, we used massively parallel pyrosequencing to characterize malaria parasite diversity in the infections of a group of patients. By individually sequencing single strands of DNA in a complex mixture, this technique can quantify uncommon variants in mixed infections. The in-host diversity revealed by this method

SUBMITTER: Juliano JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2993407 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature