Plasmodium-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers allowed detection of
infections with very low-level
parasitemia for 3 species of
malaria parasites infecting Anolis lizards at 2 Caribbean sites, Puerto Rico and
Saba, Netherlands Antilles. A verification study, using a single-tube nested PCR to eliminate contamination, showed that
infections as low as 1 parasite per millions of erythrocytes could be detected by amplifying a 673 bp fragment of the
cytochrome b gene. Very low-level
parasitemia infections, subpatent under the microscope, were common in A. sabanus on
Saba sites, with no significant seasonal difference (31% of
infections appearing uninfected by microscopic examination in summer were found infected by PCR, 38% in winter). At the Puerto Rico site, the subpatent
infections were also common in A. gundlachi, but were more prevalent in winter (53%) than in summer (17%). A similar high frequency of subpatent
infections is known from studies on human and bird
malaria, but a previous PCR-based study on a temperate lizard
malaria system found few such low-level
infections. Differences in the prevalence of subpatent
infections by site and season suggest transmission biology may select for distinct life history strategies by the parasite.