Population genomics of the immune evasion (var) genes of Plasmodium falciparum.
Var genes encode the major surface antigen (PfEMP1) of the blood stages of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.Differential expression of up to 60 diverse var genes in each parasite genome underlies immune evasion.We compared the diversity of the DBLalpha domain of var genes sampled from 30 parasite isolates from a malaria endemic area