Baseline parasite profile in developing irradiation malaria vaccine in Indonesia: molecular analysis of Papua samples

Malaria remains a major public health problem in Indonesia, therefore the development of its vaccine that can be created with radiation is urgently needed. Aim of this research was to determine the genotype of blood specimens obtained from 4-22 years old malaria outpatients in Jayapura General Hospital, Papua. The information obtained will be a great value in additional knowledge for vaccine development of gamma ray irradiated parasites. Microscopic examination on thin blood smear was done, followed by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) diagnosis to further confirm the parasite using 18S rRNA gene and mitochondrial primers on deoxyribonucleic acid extracted using chelex-100 ion exchanger and the presence of each mutation in the genes was examined using restriction fragment length polymorphism method. Our result showed that 9 samples infected with Plasmodium falciparum and 1 with P. vivax. Beside that 9 samples carried mutations in pfcrt and 22% in pfmdr1. Mutations involving N1042D at pfmdr1 gene was also detected in 3 samples (33%). Mutations in dhfr gene at codon S108N were detected in all 9 samples. Mutations in dhps gene at codon K540E were also detected in 3 (33%) samples. Analysis of the parasite genotype indicated that infection occurred with multiple parasite strains. The majority of the samples carried the 3D7 type of MSP2 gene while others carried the FC27 type. The MSP1 genes observed carried K1, MAD20 and RO33 types but some other types could not be determined.