Figure 7

Postulated inheritance of maxicircle genomes superimposed upon the two hybridization events in T. cruzi . The maxicircle clades defined by Machado and Ayala [31] are overlaid on the schema of the evolutionary history [23] of T. cruzi sub-groups. In agreement with the phylogenetic comparisons among the three clades, the maxicircle donor in the first hybridization event between the DTU I (clade A, yellow) and DTU IIb (clade C, orange) strains was the DTU I parent. Open circles and dotted lines represent maxicircle inheritance. Over time, the maxicircle in the new hybrid line accumulated a unique set of mutations distinguishing them from the DTU I parental maxicircle, designated clade B (green), as seen in sibling DTUs IIa and IIc. In the second hybridization event between strains from DTU IIc and DTU IIb, the clade B maxicircle was passed on to the progeny represented by DTUs IId and IIe. The sequences assembled for this manuscript represent maxicircles from clades B (CL Brener) and C (Esmeraldo).