design: Parasite cultures were maintained according to standard methods with gassing (5% O2 and 5% CO2, nitrogen balanced) and 5% hematocrit (O+ blood; Interstate Blood Bank) in RPMI 1640 medium (Invitrogen) supplemented with 0.5% Albumax II (Invitrogen), 0.25% sodium bicarbonate, and 0.01 mg/ml gentamicin, maintained at 37C, until reach 3% parasitemia. Then, they were harvest and genome DNA was isolated using QIAamp DNA Blood Kit (Qigen).