Characterising PvRBSA: an exclusive protein from Plasmodium species infecting reticulocytes.

Background: Plasmodium vivax uses multiple ligand-receptor interactions for preferential invasion of human reticulocytes. Several of these ligands have been identified by in silico approaches based on the role displayed by their orthologs in other Plasmodium species during initial adhesion or invasion. However, the cell adhesion role of proteins that are exclusive to species that specifically invade reticulocytes (as P.