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. 1994 Apr;62(4):1213–1218. doi: 10.1128/iai.62.4.1213-1218.1994

Size heterogeneity among antigenically related Giardia lamblia variant-specific surface proteins is due to differences in tandem repeat copy number.

M R Mowatt 1, B Y Nguyen 1, J T Conrad 1, R D Adam 1, T E Nash 1
PMCID: PMC186261  PMID: 7510666

Abstract

Giardia lamblia undergoes antigenic variation by modulating the expression of the different genes that comprise the trophozoite's variant-specific surface protein (VSP) repertoire. We studied an epitope that is conserved among VSPs expressed by cloned trophozoite lines derived from the independent G. lamblia isolates WB, G3M, Be-2, and CAT. The epitope recognized by monoclonal antibody 6E7 lies entirely within the region of tandemly repeated 65-amino-acid units that is characteristic of these size-variant VSPs. Northern (RNA) hybridization, cDNA cloning, and DNA sequence analysis indicate that size heterogeneity among these VSPs is due to differences in the number of repetitive units.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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