Inter-Population Genetic Diversity and Clustering of of Isolates from Malaysia and Thailand.

The genetic diversity of of Malaysian isolates was studied recently. However, the study only included three relatively older strains from Peninsular Malaysia and focused mainly on the conserved blocks of this gene. In this study, the full-length sequence of recent isolates from Peninsular Malaysia was characterized, along with Malaysian Borneo and Thailand sequences that were retrieved from GenBank. Genomic DNA of was extracted from human blood specimens and the gene was PCR-amplified, cloned, and sequenced. The sequences were analysed for genetic diversity, departure from neutrality, and geographical clustering. The gene was found to be under purifying/negative selection and grouped into three clusters via a neighbour-joining tree and neighbour net inferences. Of the four polymorphic blocks in , block IV, was most polymorphic, with the highest insertion-deletion (indel) sites. Two allelic families were identified in block IV, thereby highlighting the importance of this block as a promising genotyping marker for the multiplicity of infection study of malaria. A single locus marker may provide an alternate, simpler method to type in a population.