Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Prevalence of Plasmodium lineages in Spanish house sparrows

de Bruijn, Anouschka (2022) MOBK01 20221
Degree Projects in Molecular Biology
Abstract
Avian malaria parasites are prevalent all around the world and infect a wide diversity of bird species. In this report the prevalence of Plasmodium lineages in Spanish house sparrows was studied. According to previous research, higher variation of Plasmodium lineages could be expected in southern climates. This was tested by using samples collected from Spain and performing nested PCR with primers specifically designed for Plasmodium and Sanger sequencing. The two lineages identified were P_SGS1 and PAGRI02. No other findings indicated high variation of lineages, neither were any double infections found. Consequently, the hypothesis could not be confirmed to be true.
Popular Abstract
A Bird Seed a Day Won't Keep the Malaria Away


Globally, an average of 74% of all sparrows carry malaria. With over 50 billion individual wild sparrows in the world, it is easier said than done to think about how much malaria is actually flying around. Malaria in birds is caused by Haemosporidian parasites of the genera Haemoproteus, Leucocytozoon and Plasmodium. The species of this genera have similar characteristics with human malaria parasites but are referred to as avian malaria.

In this project Plasmodium lineages in Spanish house sparrows were studied with methods such as nested PCR and Sanger sequencing. Previous studies from Lund University suggested higher variation of Haemosporidian parasites in southern climates.... (More)
A Bird Seed a Day Won't Keep the Malaria Away


Globally, an average of 74% of all sparrows carry malaria. With over 50 billion individual wild sparrows in the world, it is easier said than done to think about how much malaria is actually flying around. Malaria in birds is caused by Haemosporidian parasites of the genera Haemoproteus, Leucocytozoon and Plasmodium. The species of this genera have similar characteristics with human malaria parasites but are referred to as avian malaria.

In this project Plasmodium lineages in Spanish house sparrows were studied with methods such as nested PCR and Sanger sequencing. Previous studies from Lund University suggested higher variation of Haemosporidian parasites in southern climates. Therefore, the final intention was to detect high diversity of Plasmodium lineages with possible double infections in Spanish house sparrows.

Methods and Results
The nested PCR products that presented bands on gels (only 21 out of 83 samples) were sequenced and thereafter BLASTED in the MalAvi database. Sequences were then categorized according to their identity hits, resulting in three different categories: green, orange, and pink.

Category green and orange had 100% identity to various Plasmodium lineages. To identify what lineages were true, the samples were compared to previous studies where P_SGS1 had been found as the most common lineage in Spain. The conclusion could be made that they were most likely infected with P_SGS1. Category pink contained only one sample but it was an interesting one because it did not get the same identity hits as the other two categories. It was compared in the same way as the other samples and the conclusion could be made that it was most likely infected with PAGRI02. No double peaks were found in the sequences which indicated that there were no double infections present.

The results from the project did not agree with the hypothesis that there is high variation of Plasmodium lineages present in Spanish house sparrows. We would like to suggest further studies with longer laboratory time to redo the unsatisfactory 62 outcomes in order to get better results.


Supervisor: Helena Westerdahl
Degree paper 15 credits in Molecular Biology 2022
Department of Biology, Lund University (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
de Bruijn, Anouschka
supervisor
organization
course
MOBK01 20221
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
language
English
id
9102102
date added to LUP
2022-10-21 08:25:27
date last changed
2022-10-21 08:25:27
@misc{9102102,
  abstract     = {{Avian malaria parasites are prevalent all around the world and infect a wide diversity of bird species. In this report the prevalence of Plasmodium lineages in Spanish house sparrows was studied. According to previous research, higher variation of Plasmodium lineages could be expected in southern climates. This was tested by using samples collected from Spain and performing nested PCR with primers specifically designed for Plasmodium and Sanger sequencing. The two lineages identified were P_SGS1 and PAGRI02. No other findings indicated high variation of lineages, neither were any double infections found. Consequently, the hypothesis could not be confirmed to be true.}},
  author       = {{de Bruijn, Anouschka}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Prevalence of Plasmodium lineages in Spanish house sparrows}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}