With the Malaria Parasite now becoming resistant to artemisinin based combined therapy treatments, latest research reports indicate that Chimpanzees hold the secret for the disease prevention.
Scientists say Chimpanzees have protective genetic adaptations against malaria.
But the chimps in question are those inhabiting tropical forests such as the primates of Gombe National Park in North-Western Tanzania, along Lake Tanganyika.
According to their new study, this finding could provide important insights into developing more effective malaria vaccines for humans.
In the journal Science, an international team of 84 researchers from institutions across Africa, Europe and North America reported that chimpanzees have genetic adaptations that are similar to those responsible for malaria adaptation and resistance in humans.
Mimi Arandjelovic from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and lead co-author said the evidence suggests there may be limited ways to evolve resistance to the malaria parasite.
People and chimpanzees share more than 98 percent of their Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the organic chemical that contains genetic information and instructions for protein synthesis.
With their DNA in common, varieties of diseases including malaria and HIV/Aids often affect both species.
Scientists found that chimpanzees adapt genetically to different habitats such as forests and savannahs.
In forest habitats, chimpanzees have genetic changes linked to disease resistance, especially against infections like malaria.
Since forests harbour more diseases, these genetic adaptations may help chimpanzees survive. In fact, some of the same genes that help chimpanzees fight malaria are also important for malaria resistance in humans.
The chimpanzees living in woodland or savannah, where the risk of malaria is lower, did not have the same genetic adaptations.
The researchers collected faecal samples and environmental data, allowing them to combine and investigate genetics and habitat information across all subspecies.
They extracted and sequenced chimpanzee exomes (the protein coding part of the genome) from 388 wild chimpanzees, representing 30 different populations of the four chimpanzee subspecies.
“Our results indicate that chimpanzees have genetically adapted to their particular habitat type, with adaptations both to woodland-savannah and to forests,” Arandjelovic said.
Tonny Owalla, a researcher at Med Biotech Laboratories Kampala, Uganda, who was not involved in the study, said the finding is of relevance to understanding human-parasite biology.
“This data offers the opportunity to explore immune signatures in the chimpanzee genome that can inform the design of a protective human malaria vaccine,” he said.