Figure 5. Members of Tetrahymena subfamily 7a metallothioneins are composed of modules.

Panel A. Alignment of all 15 modules. The MTs were divided up into modules as described in the text; multiple alignments were made using the T-coffee program, followed by visual inspection and manual adjustment. Linkers and submodules (see text) have been separated from one another by a blank column. The bottom four lines represent the highly conserved C-terminal modules of four MTs, missing in MTT5. Panel B. Amino acid conservation at every module position. The height of each letter represents the extent of conservation. At any given position in the module alignment, diversity is minimal (and conservation and logo height maximal) when every module has the same amino acid and there is no gap in any module. Conversely, a blank (0-height) logo column represents minimal conservation, i.e., maximal diversity, at that module position.