Figure 4

Comparative analysis of the orc/cdc6 -associated replication origins between the chromosomes of H. hispanica and H. marismortui. A. Distribution of the candidate orc/cdc6-associated replication origins in the chromosomes of H. hispanica (inside) and H. marismortui (outside). G + C content of the chromosome of H. hispanica was plotted, and significant variations in the two divergent regions are indicated with blue arrows. The predicted orc/cdc6-associated replication origins are indicated as ovals on the chromosome circle, and the shared orc/cdc6-associated replication origins in the two Haloarcula species, oriC1 and oriC2, are highlighted as filled ovals. B. Genome alignment of the chromosomes of H. hispanica and H. marismortui. Their shared orc/cdc6-associated replication origins are indicated as in A. Regions A and B represent discrepancies between the two chromosomes, which are exactly in accordance with the positions of their specific orc/cdc6-associated replication origins; oriC3-cdc6D* of H. hispanica and oriC3-cdc6i of H. marismortui are located in region A, and oriC4-cdc6g of H. marismortui is located in region B. The divergent regions and the edges of the similar regions were confirmed by BLASTN alignments of sequences, and shaded regions denote a similarity of over 70%. Linearized scaled bars are provided. C. A schematic representation of the two divergent regions (1 kb scale for Hhis_A, Hmar_A and Hhis_B; 2 kb scale for Hmar_B) between the two chromosomes. The orc/cdc6 genes are indicated. The polysaccharide biosynthesis genes are in yellow, transposase genes in purple, other genes with known functions in pink and hypothetical genes in gray. The species with the closest matches in the BLAST analysis is indicated on top of the gene: M, Methanobacterium; A, other non-halophilic archaea; B, eubacteria (the colors are designed to correspond to the marks in Additional file6). The genes in clusters are also in clusters in other haloarchaea, as indicated at the top of the clusters.