Fig. 7

Association between natural selection and host immune pressure. a Positions of amino acid changes found in global PfAMA-1 and predicted RBC-binding regions, B-cell epitopes, and IUR regions. Predicted RBC-binding regions [41], B-cell epitopes, and IUR regions [40] are presented by black underlines, dotted red lines, and bold blue lines, respectively. Polymorphic amino acid residues commonly identified in global PfAMA-1 are marked as bold red with underline. The less commonly identified amino acid changes are shown as bold blue. C1-L (cluster 1 of loop I, aa: 196–207) in DI and loop II (aa: 348–392) in DII are shown in yellow and sky blue squares, respectively. b Nucleotide diversity and natural selection analysis. Nucleotide diversity (π) and Tajima’s D (TD) values for each RBC-binding region, B-cell epitope region, and IUR region in global PfAMA-1 were analysed using DnaSP program. PNG Papua New Guinea, SI Solomon Islands