An approach to classifying sequence tags sampled from Plasmodium falciparum var genes

Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 (PfEMP1) appears to play an key role as both a virulence factor and as a target of naturally acquired immunity [1,2]. This large family of molecules is encoded by the highly polymorphic superfamily of var genes of which there are 60 variants in every genome [3].