Fig. 1

Sequenced B. burgdorferi sensu stricto plasmids. The 14 completely sequenced genomes shown as columns where shaded cells indicate the presence of a plasmid. For the linear plasmids, different cell colors and Roman numerals indicate subtypes; similar colors and numerals in different plasmids (lines in table) do not imply any relationship. For the circular plasmids light yellow shading marks the cp32 plasmids with large deletions, and Roman numerals denote the subtype of the cp9 and cp26 plasmids. No subtypes were defined for the cp32s, so a “ + ” indicates a cp32 of that compatibility group is present. “I or II” denotes plasmids in which unsequenced terminal regions preclude discrimination between subtype I and II; “fused” indicates that the two so indicated plasmids in affected strains appear to be covalently joined; “∆”, indicates the presence of a large deletion relative to other cp32s, and the associated letters indicate different deletion endpoints (see Additional file 1: Fig. S4 below); “inv” indicates a large inversion is present relative to the other cp32s; and parentheses (…) enclose the one cp9 and three cp32 plasmids whose sequences were not closed. (a) rRNA IGS1 (intergenic spacer number one) nomenclature according to Travinsky et al. [88]. (b) Related chromosomal SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) groups according to Mongodin et al. [48]. (c) Defined in text and Fig. 6a below. (d) OspC type nomenclature of Barbour and Travinsky [79]. (e) Previously named cp32-2 AND cp32-7 have the same compatibility; we use cp32-7 to represent this group. (f) These plasmids are known to have been present in the isolate before sequencing, but were lost in the culture whose DNA was used for sequencing. (g) The lp32-3 plasmid likely has the same compatibility type as cp32-3 (see text)