Genetic macro- and minidiversity variants (gene order and orientation, gene identity, insertion elements) within the <i>H. pylori cag</i>PAI with regard to population assignments.

a, b, c, d, e represent different genetic variants of mini-IS606; mini-IS606 variants c, d and e were collectively referred to as “remnant IS606* within the cag right end segment” by Kersulyte et al. [26]. 1Also in 8/11 strains from Japan [19]. The inversion encompasses a total of 1230 bp that are present in hpAsia2 and consists of HP0535 plus 483 bp of upstream and 381 bp of downstream flanking non-coding DNA. The homologous stretch in J99 contains flanking non-coding DNA stretches of 50 bp upstream and 160 bp downstream that are replaced by 490 bp and 460 bp, respectively, in hpAsia2 strain KAZ3173 (see Figure S1). 2357 bp versus 659 bp for HP0521 in J99. 3Also in 34/63 strains from Sweden [20]. 4IL-8 induction is according to data published by Oh et al. [21]. However, HP0527 and HP0544 possess frameshift mutations that would normally prevent induction of IL-8. 5Found in 1/95 additional strains from a global survey (this study) and 11/40 strains from Italy [2]. 6in 1/95 additional strains from a global survey (this study). 7also found in 4/40 strains from Italy [2]. 8Deletion would prevent IL-8 induction. IL-8 induction is observed because of the presence of HP0536 – HP0547 in another genomic location.