Figure 5

Intact MSP genes in parthenogenetic nematodes. A: Sequence alignment of deduced MSP reading frames PCR-amplified from genomic DNA of parthenogenetic nematodes. Two closely related species pairs, D. coronatus/C. elegans and A. nanus/Acrobeloides (herma), with two representative sequences each are shown in separate alignment blocks. The position of introns is indicated (red: intron follows after this amino acid in genomic sequence), conserved AA are represented by a dot. The coding sequences of parthenogenetic species (violet) are intact, and their intron position is conserved between several species (except C. elegans where MSP introns are absent). The C-terminal epitope recognised by the MSP antibody is highlighted. Accession numbers: Ce_MSP-19 (AAC26926.1), Ce_MSP-45 (AAA96204.1). Amino acid numbering after Ce_MSP-19. B: Sequence alignment of two representative full length MSP coding regions identified in the genome sequences of the obligately parthenogenetic species M. incognita (violet) and the facultatively parthenogenetic species M. hapla. Ce_MSP-19 is included as a reference. With two exceptions (S4T, I42V), all deduced amino acid sequences in M. incognita and M. hapla are identical and highly similar to the C. elegans reference MSP-19. Amino acid numbering after Ce_MSP-19. The position of introns is indicated (red) and identical to the positions of other MSP proteins as shown in Figure 5A.