Fig. 1: Genomic organization and structural diversity of ppe50 variants in the MTBC.

a Predicted open reading frames for ppe50 variants and flanking genes. Genomic structural diversity in the Rv3135 locus has resulted in several ppe50 variant ORFs that are associated with MTBC lineages. ppe50 gene length varies considerably in contrast to the Rv3134c and Rv3136, which are highly conserved. Genomic coordinates are shown with respect to M. tuberculosis H37Rv for ease of comparison. †: Note: ppe50 variant ORFs for lineages L2.2.1 and L4.2.1.1. are shown only. b Regions of difference (RD) that form the ppe50 variants in the MTBC. ppe50 genomic locus for each variant were aligned to the ppe50-381 locus of M. canettii (CIPT140010059). Deletions denoting RDs with respect to M. canettii are shown in black lines for each ppe50 variant. In the ppe50 variants, deletions span part of the ppe50 gene and downstream intergenic region (hash arrows). ABC denotes base pair (bp) positions of the stop codons (downstream from the end of the M. canettii ppe50-381 gene): (A) ppe50-268 and ppe50-345 (position 438); (B) ppe50-387 and ppe50-439 (position 520); (C) ppe50-87, ppe50-132 and ppe50-262 (position 590). ppe50-439 has unknown 110 bp insertion (blue hash). ppe50-deleted 1, 2 and 3 are distinct  RDs for lineage 1, 4.1, and 4.2, respectively. †: Note, RDs described in this study and their coordinates are shown in the Supplementary Table 1.