Fig. 2: The T. vivax VSG repertoire is described by 174 phylotypes.
From: Variant antigen diversity in Trypanosoma vivax is not driven by recombination
A sequence homology network in which nodes represent phylotypes. Four conserved VSG sub-families (Fam23–2613) are indicated by pale red back-shading. Nodes are labelled by phylotype number; node size indicates the number of COGs in each phylotype, while node colour indicates the geographical distribution of the phylotype across 28 clinical isolates. Edges represent PSI-BLAST similarity scores greater than a threshold necessary to connect all phylotypes within sub-families. Structural homology of Fam23 and Fam24 with A-type and B-type T. brucei VSG respectively is indicated at top left. The figure shows that most phylotypes are cosmopolitan in nature, found in multiple strains and in more than two regions. A minority are strain- or location-specific phylotypes, e.g. there are ten phylotypes specific to West Africa (i.e. Ivory Coast, Togo and Burkina Faso) and another 15 phylotypes that are unique to a single location, for instance five in Nigeria (P94, P118, P126, P170, P173), three in Burkina Faso (P11, P86, P120) and two in The Gambia (P110, P124). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
