Prevalence of Polymorphisms in Antifolate Drug Resistance Molecular Marker Genespvdhfrandpvdhpsin Clinical Isolates of Plasmodium vivax from Kolkata, India
ABSTRACTSulfadoxine-pyrimethamine has never been recommended for the treatment ofPlasmodium vivaxmalaria as the parasite is intrinsically resistant to pyrimethamine. The combination was introduced as a promising agent to treatPlasmodium falciparummalaria in many countries but was withdrawn after a few years due to development and spread of resistant strains. Presently, sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine is used as a partner drug of artemisinin-based combination therapy to treat uncomplicated falciparum malaria, and a combination of artesunate-sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine is currently in use in India. In countries like India, where bothP. vivaxandP. falciparumare equally prevalent, some proportion ofP. vivaxbacteria is exposed to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine due to misdiagnosis and mixed infections. As reports on thein vivotherapeutic efficacy of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine inP. vivaxare rare, the study of mutations in the marker genesP. vivaxdhfr(pvdhfr) andpvdhpsis important for predicting drug selection pressure and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine resistance monitoring. We studied the prevalence of point mutations and haplotypes of both the genes in 80P. vivaxisolates collected from urban Kolkata, India, by the DNA sequencing method. Point mutation rates in both the genes were low. The double mutantpvdhfrA15N50R58N117I173(mutations are in boldface) and the single mutantpvdhpsgenotype S382G383K512A553V585were more prevalent, while 35% of the isolates harbored the wild-type genotype. The triple mutant ANRNI-SGKAV was found in 29.9% isolates. No quintuple mutant genotype was recorded. TheP. vivaxparasites in urban Kolkata may still be susceptible to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine. Hence, a combination of antimalarial drugs like artesunate-sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine introduced forP. falciparuminfection might be effective inP. vivaxinfection also. Study of the therapeutic efficacy of this combination inP. vivaxis thus strongly suggested. (The study protocol was registered in the Clinical Trial Registry-India [CTRI] of the Indian Council of Medical Research under registration number CTRI/2011/09/002031.)