ArticleEBioMedicine2015
Natural infection of Plasmodium brasilianum in humans: Man and monkey share quartan malaria parasites in the Venezuelan Amazon.
Article in EBioMedicine, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 94 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
94 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 157 citations in OpenAlex.
- The threat of increased transmission of non-Parasitology · 2023Pooled it
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- Submicroscopic infections and two malaria vectors are major contributors to residual malaria in an Amazonian village in Peru.Scientific reports · 2025Article
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- Community perception and preventive practices regarding malaria in low-endemicity regions on Indonesian Kalimantan border adjacent to high-endemicity zoonotic malaria in Malaysian Borneo.Tropical medicine and health · 2025Article
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- Autochthonous simian malaria in Brazil outside the Amazon: Emergence, zoonotic transmission and implications for disease control.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2024Review
- Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification for Diagnosis of Zoonotic Malaria.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2024Article
- Overview ofComparative medicine · 2024Review
- Zoonotic Malaria Risk in Serra Do Mar, Atlantic Forest, Brazil.Microorganisms · 2023Article
- Detection of Plasmodium simium gametocytes in non-human primates from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.Malaria journal · 2023Article
- Plasmodium cynomolgi in humans: current knowledge and future directions of an emerging zoonotic malaria parasite.Infection · 2023Review
- Computational Exploration of Licorice for Lead Compounds againstMolecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Serum proteomic profile of wild stump-tailed macaques (Macaca arctoides) infected with malaria parasites in Thailand.PloS one · 2023Article
- IgM antibody responses againstFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2023Article
- Is zoonotic Plasmodium vivax malaria an obstacle for disease elimination?Malaria journal · 2022Article
34 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe quartan malaria parasite Plasmodium malariae is the widest spread and best adapted human malaria parasite. The simian Plasmodium brasilianum causes quartan fever in New World monkeys and resembles P. malariae morphologically. Since the genetics of the two parasites are nearly identical, differing only in a range of mutations expected within a species, it has long been speculated that the two are the same. However, no naturally acquired infection with parasites termed as P. brasilianum has been found in humans until now.
methodsWe investigated malaria cases from remote Yanomami indigenous communities of the Venezuelan Amazon and analyzed the genes coding for the circumsporozoite protein (CSP) and the small subunit of ribosomes (18S) by species-specific PCR and capillary based-DNA sequencing.
findingsBased on 18S rRNA gene sequencing, we identified 12 patients harboring malaria parasites which were 100% identical with P. brasilianum isolated from the monkey, Alouatta seniculus. Translated amino acid sequences of the CS protein gene showed identical immunodominant repeat units between quartan malaria parasites isolated from both humans and monkeys.
interpretationThis study reports, for the first time, naturally acquired infections in humans with parasites termed as P. brasilianum. We conclude that quartan malaria parasites are easily exchanged between humans and monkeys in Latin America. We hypothesize a lack of host specificity in mammalian hosts and consider quartan malaria to be a true anthropozoonosis. Since the name P. brasilianum suggests a malaria species distinct from P. malariae, we propose that P. brasilianum should have a nomenclatorial revision in case further research confirms our findings. The expansive reservoir of mammalian hosts discriminates quartan malaria from other Plasmodium spp. and requires particular research efforts.
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