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Are eukaryotic microorganisms clonal or sexual? A population genetics vantage.
Open accessAbstract
We argue that the mode of reproduction of microorganisms in nature can only be decided by population genetic information. The evidence available indicates that many parasitic protozoa and unicellular fungi have clonal rather than sexual population structures, which has major consequences for medical research and practice. Plasmodium falciparum, the agent of malaria, is a special case: the scarce evidence available is contradictory, some suggesting that uniparental lineages may exist in nature. This is puzzling (because P. falciparum is known to have a sexual stage) and poses a challenge that can be readily settled by ascertaining the frequency distribution of genotypes in natural populations.
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Citations
Cited by
Smith, J. M., Smith, N. H., O'Rourke, M., & Spratt, B. G. (1993) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.90.10.4384 · Cited by 1,802
Virulent strains of Toxoplasma gondii comprise a single clonal lineage
Sibley, L. D., & Boothroyd, J. C. (1992) · Nature · doi:10.1038/359082a0 · Cited by 831
The Early Evolution of Eukaryotes: A Geological Perspective
Knoll, A. H. (1992) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1585174 · Cited by 684
The Population Genetics of Clonal and Partially Clonal Diploids
Balloux, F., Lehmann, L., & de Meeûs, T. (2003) · Genetics · doi:10.1093/genetics/164.4.1635 · Cited by 585
RECOMBINATION AND THE MULTILOCUS STRUCTURE OF FUNGAL POPULATIONS
Milgroom, M. G. (1996) · Annual Review of Phytopathology · doi:10.1146/annurev.phyto.34.1.457 · Cited by 549
Metadata
- Authors
- Tibayrenc, M., Kjellberg, F., Arnaud, J., Oury, B., Brenière, S. F., Dardé, M. L., & Ayala, F. J.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 1991-06-15
- Volume
- 88
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 5129-5133
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- OpenAlex
- W2060245318
- Cited by
- 370
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 6.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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- Tibayrenc, M., Kjellberg, F., Arnaud, J., Oury, B., Brenière, S. F., Dardé, M. L., & Ayala, F. J. (1991). Are eukaryotic microorganisms clonal or sexual? A population genetics vantage. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.88.12.5129
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
