Fig. 4

Sequence variation in the RS2 repeat region. a The three RS2 repeats within the reference sequence (NC_001700). Seven single-nucleotide variants that spread within RS2 arrays are shown, as is the position of a putative termination associated sequence (TAS; [17]). b Simplified phylogeny showing examples of RS2 repeat array structures and the eleven inferred variant spreading events (labelled 1–11). The full set of 118 analysed arrays can be seen in Figure S6 and Table S6. Within schematic repeat arrays, numbers over dotted lines indicate repeat number ranges for a given repeat type, e.g. ‘3–4’ indicates a range of 3–4 repeat units within that set of structures