Question

Links (10 Multiple Alleles Confer Drug Resistance in the Malaria Parasite Malaria is a parasitic disease in humans that is transmitted by infected female mosquitoes, including Anopheles gambiae (Figure 12. 10a), and is characterized by cyclic high fevers, chills, flu-like symptoms, and severe anemia, Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax are the most common causative agents of malaria, and P. falciparum is the most deadly (Figure 12.10b). When promptly and correctly treated, P. falciparum malaria has a mortality rate of 0.1 percent. However, in some parts of the world, the parasite has evolved resistance to commonly used malaria treatments, so the most effective malarial treatments can vary by geographic region. Figure 12.10 The (a) Anopheles gambiae, or African malaria mosquito, acts as a vector in the transmission to humans of the malaria-causing parasite (b) Plasmodium falciparum, here visualized using false-color transmission electron microscopy (credit a: James D. Gathany, credit b: Ute Frevert; false color by Margaret Shear, scale-bar data from Matt Russell) in Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America, P. falciparum has developed resistance to the anti-malarial drugs chloroquine, mefloquine, and sulfadoxine- pyrimethamine. P falciparum, which is haploid during the life stage in which it is infectious to humans, has evolved multiple drug-resistant mutant alleles of the dhos 2020 12:59 AM

Answer 1

Correct option c

Plasmodium is infectious at the haploid stage and haploid organisms need only one allele to express a particular trait. So a single drug resistant dhps allele in Plasmodium is sufficient to express the drug resistant trait.