Fig. 4

Conditional knockdown of PfSWIB leads to a change in expression profiles of 44 vars in different lines. Hierarchical clustering heatmap of log₂ transformed fragments per kilobase of transcript per million (FPKM) gene expression values for 44 var genes after re-invasion in the 3rd life-cycle of P. falciparum. The color scale ranges from green to red, showing a range from minimum (≤ − 0.4) to maximum (≥ − 0.4) log₂ FPKM gene expression values for each var variant. Row labels with red and black arrows denote 9 upregulated and 5 downregulated upsB vars detected by qPCR analysis, respectively. Different var gene subtypes are shown in differently colored boxes