Partner study description

Colombia is among the countries with the highest malaria burden outside of Africa, and one of the least successful in reducing case numbers, with approximately 100,000 cases per year. The emergence and evolution of antimalarial resistance started approximately 50 years ago, however this problem is poorly understood and no whole genome sequences are yet available for Colombian Plasmodium falciparum parasites. This project aims to use sequence data from P. falciparum parasites from the Colombian Pacific region, the predominant area for falciparum malaria in the country, to identify genomic regions with strong evidence for recent selection with a particular focus on variation in permeome drug transporters, potential candidates in the mechanism of action of multidrug resistance.

Publications

• Resolving drug selection and migration in an inbred South American Plasmodium falciparum population with identity-by-descent analysis
  Carrasquilla et al.
  bioRxiv, 2022;
  10.1101/2022.02.18.480973
• An open dataset of Plasmodium falciparum genome variation in 7,000 worldwide samples
  MalariaGEN et. al
  Wellcome Open Research, 2021; 6 42
  10.12688/wellcomeopenres.16168.1
• Identity-by-descent with uncertainty characterises connectivity of Plasmodium falciparum populations on the Colombian-Pacific coast
  Taylor et al.
  PLoS Genetics, 2020; 16(11) e1009101
  10.1371/journal.pgen.1009101
• Genomic epidemiology of artemisinin resistant malaria
  MalariaGEN P. falciparum Community Project
  eLife, 2016; 5 e08714
  10.7554/eLife.08714
• A barcode of organellar genome polymorphisms identifies the geographic origin of Plasmodium falciparum strains
  Preston et al.
  Nature Communications, 2014; 5 4052
  10.1038/ncomms5052