'American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene'
Abstract
This work was supported by the Fundação de
Amparo à Pesquisa de Minas Gerais (Fapemig), the Conselho
Nacional de Pesquisa (CNPq), and PAPES/FIOCRUZ.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Pesquisa Rene
Rachou. Laboratoryo of Malaria. Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Instituto de Ciências Biológicas. Departamento de Biologia Geral. Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.Faculdade SEAMA. Macapá, AP, Brazil.Universidade Federal do
Mato Grosso. Departamento de Clínica Médica. Cuiabá, MT, Brazil.Ministério da Saúde. Secretaria de Vigilância em Saúde. Instituto Evandro Chagas. Ananindeua, PA, Brasil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Pesquisa Rene
Rachou. Laboratory of Malaria. Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Pesquisa René
Rachou. Laboratory of Malaria. Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.Few genetic markers have been described to analyze populations of Plasmodium vivax . The genetic variability of P. vivax has been analyzed mainly among isolates taken from areas ranging from hyper- to holoendemic areas. These
studies of genetic variability have neglected many areas with different epidemiologic profiles. The purpose of this study
was to analyze the genetic variability of P. vivax isolates from four different Brazilian Amazon areas. We chose to study the
five most polymorphic tandem repeats (TRs) identified so far. All TRs studied were polymorphic in at least one studied
population, with a modal allele at nearly all loci. Expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.462 to 0.666 and did not correlate
with the repeat array length. The genetic distances among the populations varied from 0.027 to 0.241, and did not correlate
with their geographic separation. Tandem repeats identified in P. vivax isolates failed to allow geographic clustering
