Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the molecular mechanism of chloroquine resistant Plasmodium falciparum malaria in West Bengal, eastern part, India. Methods: Parasitic bloods were collected from patients in Kolkata and Purulia, in vitro drug susceptibility test were performed in those 179 isolates. Now parasitic DNA was isolated by phenol chloroform extraction method and then polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of different codons of pfcrt gene (76) and the pfmdrI gene (86, 1246) were assessed. Results: The response of 179 patients to chloroquine was determined. The prevalence of both pfcrt K76T (68.72%) and pfmdrI N86Y (43.1%) mutation was found here. But most importantly severe in vitro chloroquine resistance has been found (53.07%) here, with either double 76T + 86Y mutation or triple 76T + 86Y + 1246Y mutation. Conclusions: Our present findings implicate that due to enormous drug (chloroquine) pressure, double mutation with pfcrt 76T + pfmdrI 86Y and triple mutation with pfcrt 76T + pfmdrI 86Y + pfmdrI 1246Y was highly correlated (P = 0.001) with in vitro chloroquine resistance for the first time in eastern India.

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