| Type: | Family | Name: | Plasmodium circumsporozoite protein |
| Description: | The circumsporozoite (CS) protein is the most prominant surface antigen on the sporozoite of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium spp. The sporozoite isthe infectious stage of the Plasmodium life cycle, the form in which malaria is passed from the mosquito vector to the mammalian host []. Antibodies tothis protein are used in the field to detect exposure to malaria [] and it is a target for several vaccines [].The sequence of the CS protein consists of head and tail regions, which are largely conserved, and a large set of low-complexity repeats, which are variant across strain and species []. The C-terminal region is probably used for anchoring the protein to the cell membrane, while the centralrepeat sequences would be the surface antigen of the organism. The repeats, which encode the immunodominant epitope of the CS protein (see ), diverge more rapidly than the remainder of the gene. It is thought that the maintenanceand evolution of the repeats is achieved via a mechanism that acts not at the protein level, but rather directly on the DNA sequence []. | Short Name: | Crcmsprzoite |
