Plasmodium falciparum proteins were searched against a database of proteins from all complete genomes as well as from a set of organelle, plasmid and viral genomes. Putative recently duplicated genes were identified as those encoding proteins with better BLASTP matches (based on E value with a 10−15 cutoff) to other proteins in P. falciparum than to proteins in any other species. Proteins of possible organellar descent were identified as those for which one of the top six prokaryotic matches (based on E value) was to either a protein encoded by an organelle genome or by a species related to the organelle ancestors (members of the Rickettsia subgroup of the α-Proteobacteria or cyanobacteria). Because BLAST matches are not an ideal method of inferring evolutionary history, phylogenetic analysis was conducted for all these proteins. For phylogenetic analysis, all homologues of each protein were identified by BLASTP searches of complete genomes and of a nonredundant protein database. Sequences were aligned using CLUSTALW, and phylogenetic trees were inferred using the neighbour-joining algorithms of CLUSTALW and PHYLIP. For comparative analysis of eukaryotes, the proteomes of all eukaryotes for which complete genomes are available (except the highly reduced E. cuniculi) were searched against each other. The proportion of proteins in each eukaryotic species that had a BLASTP match in each of the other eukaryotic species was determined, and used to infer a ‘whole-genome tree’ using the neighbour-joining algorithm. Possible eukaryotic conserved and specific proteins were identified as those with matches to all the complete eukaryotic genomes (10−30 E-value cutoff) but without matches to any complete prokaryotic genome (10−15 cutoff).