Microsatellites reveal high polymorphism and high potential for use in anti-malarial efficacy studies in areas with different transmission intensities in mainland Tanzania

Table 1 Population genetic metrics of four Tanzanian Plasmodium falciparum populations

Population	Prevalence (%)^a	N	n	h	R_s ± SD	H_e ± SD	I_A^S	MOI	Polyclonality (%)^b
Kibaha	13.8	25	21	19	8.03 ± 2.8	0.85 ± 0.12	0.1569**	1.76	47.6
Ujiji-Kigoma	35.6	23	22	22	7.48 ± 2.1	0.84 ± 0.10	0.1736**	1.88	59.09
Mkuzi-Muheza	22.6	25	22	22	7.79 ± 2.4	0.82 ± 0.14	0.1095**	1.68	54.5
Mlimba-Kilombero	30.2	21	18	18	7.56 ± 2.3	0.80 ± 0.20	0.0903*	1.72	55.5

N: total number of samples; n: number of samples successfully genotyped; h: number of unique haplotypes; R_s: Allelic richness; H_e: expected heterozygosity; I_A^S: standard index of association as a measure of multi-locus linkage disequilibrium (LD); MOI: multiplicity of infection (mean number of clones per population); Polyclonality = proportion of samples containing more than one parasite clone
*p-value < 0.01, **p-value < 0.001
^aPrevalence of malaria in the study districts in the 2015 school malaria parasitological survey [38]
^bPolyclonality (%) refers to the proportion of infections with > 1 clones

ISSN: 1475-2875