Fig 3. Induction of var2csa expression in response to PfSET2 dom-neg over-expression in a heterogenous population expressing many var genes.

The original population expressed many var genes and there was no single gene that was dominant (left panel). After selection with 10 μg/ml blastidicin leading to over-expression of the PfSET2 dom-neg construct for 4 weeks, var gene expression began to shift to var2csa, resulting in this gene being the most highly expressed gene in the population (middle panel). Similar over-expression of luciferase did not lead to expression of var2csa (right panel), while a different var gene became somewhat highly expressed, indicating that switching can occur. Individual copy number values for each transcript are shown in S5 Fig.