TY - JOUR AU - Joannin, Nicolas AU - Kallberg, Yvonne AU - Wahlgren, Mats AU - Persson, Bengt PY - 2011 DA - 2011/02/18 TI - RSpred, a set of Hidden Markov Models to detect and classify the RIFIN and STEVOR proteins of Plasmodium falciparum JO - BMC Genomics SP - 119 VL - 12 IS - 1 AB - Many parasites use multicopy protein families to avoid their host's immune system through a strategy called antigenic variation. RIFIN and STEVOR proteins are variable surface antigens uniquely found in the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and P. reichenowi. Although these two protein families are different, they have more similarity to each other than to any other proteins described to date. As a result, they have been grouped together in one Pfam domain. However, a recent study has described the sub-division of the RIFIN protein family into several functionally distinct groups. These sub-groups require phylogenetic analysis to sort out, which is not practical for large-scale projects, such as the sequencing of patient isolates and meta-genomic analysis. SN - 1471-2164 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-12-119 DO - 10.1186/1471-2164-12-119 ID - Joannin2011 ER -