Figure 1.

Interspecies comparison of MSP1 protein sequences. Full-length deduced MSP1 amino acid sequences from 16 Plasmodium species (Table 2) were aligned and an average amino acid similarity score was determined for successive 10 amino acid segments (alignment available upon request). Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, and P. ovale were represented by strains K1, Belem, and OM1A, respectively. Shaded boxes indicate locations of reported conserved sequence blocks.³² Along the top, positions of differences between deduced MSP1 amino acid sequences from P. ovale strains OM1A and OM1B are denoted by vertical lines. Locations of imperfect repeats (horizontal lines) are indicated for P. malariae (upper lines) and P. ovale (OM1A isolate, lower lines). Signal peptide (SP), p33 and p19 regions are also shown.