Plasmodium falciparum variant surface antigen expression patterns during malaria.

ABSTRACT: The variant surface antigens expressed on Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes are potentially important targets of immunity to malaria and are encoded, at least in part, by a family of var genes, about 60 of which are present within every parasite genome. Here we use semi-conserved regions within short var gene sequence "tags" to make direct comparisons of var gene expression in 12 clinical parasite isolates from Kenyan children. A total of 1,746 var clones were sequenced from genomic and cDNA and assigned to one of six sequence groups using specific sequence features. The results show the following. (1) The relative numbers of genomic clones falling in each of the sequence groups was similar between parasite isolates and corresponded well with the numbers of genes found in the gen

SUBMITTER: Bull PC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1287908 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature