Identification of Plasmodium vivax-like human malaria parasite.

There are four species of human malarial parasite and several monkey ones, and in evolutionary terms the human and non-human primate plasmodia may be related. The tools of molecular biology have lately pointed to the existence of two types of Plasmodium vivax. Using specific oligonucleotides we have identified a human malaria parasite resembling P vivax under the microscope but with circumsporozoite (CS) protein differing from those of P vivax types 1 and 2. The CS protein of this "P vivax-like" malaria parasite is identical to that of P simiovale, a monkey parasite resembling P ovale, a human one, morphologically. Polyclonal serum raised against a partial repeat sequence of the P vivax-like malaria parasite specifically reacted with P simiovale sporozoites but not with those of P vivax types 1 and 2, P ovale, or P simium. Sera collected from people living in malaria endemic regions of Papua New Guinea and Brazil contained antibodies that specifically reacted with the synthetic peptides representing the repeat sequences of CS protein of this P vivax-like parasite. A comparison of the CS protein gene sequences of P simiovale and the P vivax-like malaria parasites with those of other primate parasites, data on serological cross-reactivity, and 18S ribosomal DNA analyses suggest that the new human malaria parasite described here is distinct from P falciparum, P malariae, P vivax, and P ovale, the four known species of human parasite.