Merozoite surface protein-3 alpha as a genetic marker for epidemiologic studies in Plasmodium vivax: a cautionary note

Table 1 Genetic polymorphism of MSP-3α in P. vivax and P. cynomolgi populations

Species (Population)	n	Allele range	Aligned length^b	Inform. sites	Indel hap.	Average indel length	d(SE)^c	dS-dN(SE)	Z-stat p value
P. vivax	48	1779-2601	2646	1413	28	67.3	0.027 (0.003)	+0.021 (0.007)	*
Worldwide^a	21	1788-2601	2646	1572	15	46.3	0.027 (0.003)	+0.025 (0.008)	*
Thailand	17	1779-2580	2646	1686	13	100.8	0.033 (0.002)	+0.024 (0.007)	*
Venezuela	10	2232-2295	2646	2214	4	24.8	0.031 (0.002)	+0.010 (0.005)	-
P. cynomolgi	9	1959-1968	2028	1902	6	21.5	0.064 (0.004)	+0.024 (0.010)	*

“Inform. sites” stands for “Informative sites” and “Indel Hap.” stands for “Indel Haplotypes”.
“*” Indicates that the value is statistically significant for α = 0.05; “-” stands for non-significant.
^a The worldwide population of P. vivax contains the geographically diverse samples (n = 21) not within the Venezuelan or Thai sample populations from 2003-2004 or 2001-2002, respectively.
^b Lengths and allele range are in base pairs.
^c Diversity, d, is calculated as the average pairwise divergence per site. Standard error (SE) estimates from 1000 bootstrap pseudoreplications and p-values from the codon based Z test are shown. Significant values (p < 0.05) are bolded.