Figure 2

Phylogenetic analysis of the PSA gene family. A phylogenetic tree was inferred by PhyML for a DNA alignment of the PSA ORFs of L. braziliensis, L. major and L. infantum, excluding the Thr/Ser and Cys-rich/transmembrane C-terminal domains as well as all but the C-ter most LRR repeat (see Additional file 1). Only bootstrap values (from 500 replicates) greater than 74% are indicated. Very similar trees (with same significant clustering of genes) were obtained with DNA or protein sequence alignments, using both maximum likelihood or distance methods (not shown). SP: signal peptide; #LRR: number of LRR repeats (number in brackets refers to additional LRRs that diverge from the consensus LRR sequence). T/S: number of Thr and Ser residues in the Thr-rich domain (or Ser-rich, indicated by (S)). CRTM: cysteine-rich and C-ter transmembrane domains. GPI: GPI anchor. Filled and open squares indicate the presence or absence of the above features, respectively.