Babesia bovis host cell recognition proteins.

Babesia bovis enters host erythrocytes by invagination but nothing is known of the proteins involved. By means of metabolic labelling, differential centrifugation in oil and salt elution, a number of babesial proteins have been shown to bind to bovine erythrocytes. Strong binding is evidenced only by a 38/19 kDa pair. Preliminary experiments indicate that these two proteins also bind to human erythrocytes, although apparently to a lesser extent.