Figure 4. Networks of DBL sequences from single- and multi-species Laverania infections.

Each node represents a DBL HVR sequence and each link represents a shared amino-acid substring of significant length. Note that for each sample only unique var DBL haplotypes were included in the network analysis. Nodes with zero links indicate sequences that share no significant amino-acid substrings with other sequences. Networks were built separately for each HVR, where mosaic diversity is highest (see the Methods section). Circular nodes represent chimpanzee parasites and square nodes represent gorilla parasites. Node colour corresponds to species and node size corresponds to tag length as indicated. DBLx sequences are enclosed in boxes. Annotations call attention to (A) P. praefalciparum single-species infection sequence; (B) DBLx sequences from gorilla samples, hypothesized to be P. adleri, that share mosaic elements with DBLx chimpanzee parasites.