Figure 10

Mean (relative) evolutionary rates for the VAR2CSA protein. These rates are scaled such that the average evolutionary rate across all sites is 1. This means that sites showing a rate < 1 are evolving slower than average and those with a rate > 1 are evolving faster than average. These relative rates were estimated under the Jones-Taylor-Thornton model (+G). A discrete Gamma (+G) distribution was used to model evolutionary rate differences among sites (4 categories). Blue dots correspond with P. falciparum and red dots are chimpanzee parasites. The graph shows that P. falciparum sequences are by far more divergent that those lineages found in chimpanzees.