RFLP Analysis

The genetic identification of malaria parasites has become an important task for epidemiological studies and for laboratory-based studies (1 –7 ). A large number of adapted field isolates have been cultured and widely circulated during the past years. However, only few of these have been clearly characterized by molecular means and in some instances it has been shown that parasites previously believed to be derived from different isolates show a similar to identical molecular makeup (8 ). Similarly, parasite cultures believed to be identical show significant differences on a genetic level (9 ). Such unreliability of sources of research might cause havoc to the studies and might contribute to discrepant findings.