Whole-genome sequencing of a Plasmodium vivax isolate from the China-Myanmar border area

Currently, there is a trend of an increasing number of Plasmodium vivax malaria cases in China that are imported across its Southeast Asia border, especially in the China-Myanmar border area (CMB). To date, little is known about the genetic diversity of P. vivax in this region. In this paper, we report the first genome sequencing of a P. vivax isolate (CMB-1) from a vivax malaria patient in CMB. The sequencing data were aligned onto 96.43% of the P. vivax Salvador I reference strain (Sal I) genome with 7.84-fold coverage as well as onto 98.32% of 14 Sal I chromosomes. Using the de novo assembly approach, we generated 8,541 scaffolds and assembled a total of 27.1 Mb of sequence into CMB-1 scaffolds. Furthermore, we identified all 295 known vir genes, which is the largest subtelomeric multigene family in malaria parasites. These results provide an important foundation for further research on P. vivax population genetics.