Fig 1. Schematic diagram of a typical PfEMP1 structure interacting with host endothelial receptors.

The multi-domain structure of PfEMP1 may facilitate interactions that enhance capture and binding of Pf-IE from flow, as well as other interactions involved in signalling that occur once the Pf-IE have been bound, however the involvement of multiple interactions along these pathways is largely hypothetical, with limited data to support it. The lower section shows the domain content (adapted from [10]) of the expressed PfEMP1s of the IT4var14 and IT4var37 isolates used in this study. The var domain structures were determined using the VarDom server [11].