Taxonomic distribution and sequence properties of ESAG gene families in African trypanosomes.

Note: ESAG family size is given for non-ES linked (i.e. core or subtelomeric) copies.aPlus and tilde symbols indicate the presence of orthologs and homologs respectively in T. brucei (Tb), T. congolense IL3000 (Tco), T. vivax Y486 (Tv) and T. cruzi CL Brener (Tc).bWhile the closest relatives of ESAG2 are in T. congolense, orthologs cannot be precisely defined among the T. congolense VSG repertoire.cReciprocal monophyly is confirmed where mutually exclusive clades of ES-linked and non-ES gene copies occur.dAverage pair-wise sequence divergence estimated from Bayesian phylogenies using RAxML 7.0.4. [108].eEstimated using MEGA v5 [53] where appropriate out-groups are present; the number of unique differences per lineage given is given in brackets.fEstimated using PhiPack [54] for separate alignments of ESAGs and related, non-ES gene copies (where non-ES copies are present).