Plasmodium cynomolgi is a malaria parasite that typically infects Asian macaque monkeys, and humans on rare
occasions. P. cynomolgi serves as a model system for the human malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax, with which
it shares such important biological characteristics as formation of a dormant liver stage and a preference to
invade reticulocytes. While genomes of three P. cynomolgi strains have been sequenced, genetic diversity of
P. cynomolgi has not been widely investigated. To address this we developed the first panel of P. cynomolgi microsatellite
markers to genotype eleven P. cynomolgi laboratory strains and 18 field isolates fromSarawak,Malaysian
Borneo. We found diverse genotypes among most of the laboratory strains, though two nominally different
strains were found to be genetically identical. We also investigated sequence polymorphism in two erythrocyte
invasion gene families, the reticulocyte binding protein and Duffy binding protein genes, in these strains. Wealso
observed copy number variation in rbp genes
