Fig. 1.

Overview of var gene-encoded PfEMP1 domain structures and the common distribution of different types and domain compositions of var genes in the average P. falciparum genome. A Arrows indicate location of commonly used annealing sites for degenerate primers, which can target the genes to generate DBLα sequence tags. Domains are coloured differently according to main domain type. DBLα2 domains are products of recombination between DBLα0 and DBLα1 domains. DBLα1 and DBLδ can have either a CIDRβ, CIDRγ or CIDRδ domain. B Shows block structure of DBLα domain (adapted from [8])