ABSTRACT
Background The knowledge on population structure of the parasite isolates has contributed greatly to understanding the dynamics of the disease transmission for designing and evaluating malaria vaccines as well as for drug applications. msp-1 and msp-3? genes have been used as a genetic marker in population studies of Plasmodium vivax isolates. In this study; msp-3? was compared and assessed with msp-1marker in order to find whether msp-3? is a reliable genetic marker for P. vivax population studies. Methods This comparative study was designed and carried out as the first assessment of diversity in Pvmsp-3? gene by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) in the 50 northern and 94 southern P. vivax isolates from Iran; which had been analysed before for msp-1 gene. Results Three allele size as; Type A (1.8 kb); Type B (1.5 kb) and Type C (1.2 kb) have been detected among both northern and southern isolates based on PCR results. Type C (70