ABSTRACT. The mosquito Aedes albopictus is indigenous to SoutheastAsian and is a vector for arbovirus diseases. Studies examining the population genetics structure of A. albopictus have been conducted worldwide; however, there are no documented reports on the population genetic structure of A. albopictus in Malaysia, particularly in Penang. We examined the population genetics of A. albopictus based on a 445-base pair segment of the mitochondrial DNA cytochrome oxidase 1 gene among 77 individuals from 9 localities representing 4 regions (Seberang Perai Utara, Seberang Perai Tengah, Northeast, and Southwest) of Penang. A total of 37 haplotypes were detected, including 28 unique haplotypes. The other 9 haplotypes were shared among various populations. These shared haplotypes reflect the weak population genetic structure of A. albopictus. The phylogenetic tree showed a low bootstrap value with no genetic structure, which was supported by minimum spanning network analysis. Analysis of mismatch distribution showed poor fit of equilibrium distribution. The genetic distance showed low genetic variation, while pairwise F ST values showed no significant difference between all regions in Penang except for some localities. High haplotype diversity and low nucleotide diversity was observed for cytochrome oxidase 1 mtDNA. We conclude that there is no population genetic structure of A. albopictus mosquitoes in the Penang area.

Dengue causes significantly more human disease than any other arboviruses. It causes a spectrum of illness, ranging from mild self-limited fever, to severe and fatal dengue hemorrhagic fever, as evidenced by vascular leakage and multifactorial hemostatic abnormalities. There is no specific treatment available till date. Evidence shows that chemokines CXCL10, CXCL11 and their receptor CXCR3 are involved in severity of dengue, but their genetic association with the susceptibility of vascular leakage during dengue infection has not been reported. We genotyped 14 common variants of these candidate genes in 176 patients infected with dengue. rs4859584 and rs8878 (CXCL10) were significantly associated with vascular permeability of dengue infection (P<0.05); while variants of CXCL11 showed moderate significance of association (P=0.0527). Haplotype blocks were constructed for genes CXCL10 and CXCL11 (5 and 7 common variants respectively). Haplotype association tests performed revealed that, "CCCCA" of gene CXCL10 and "AGTTTAC" of CXCL11 were found to be significantly associated with vascular leakage (P=0.0154 and 0.0366 respectively). In summary, our association study further strengthens the evidence of the involvement of CXCL10 and CXCL11 in the pathogenesis of dengue infection.

Conclusion: SSU based PCR-RFLP tool discriminated Cryptosporidium into two species and C. hominis was more prevalent in this area. GP60 sequence based subtyping has revealed the coexistence of C. hominis with C. meleagridis/C. parvum and also C. hominis subtypes. These species were missed by SSU rRNA based RFLP analysis which detected only C. hominis in concurrent infections. The existence of many C. hominis and C. parvum subgenotype families and subtypes within the subgenotype families reveals the complexity of Cryptosporidium transmission and this heterogeneity indicates stable cryptosporidiosis transmission in North India. http://dx.