(A) Alignment of the most highly conserved carboxy-terminal amino acid sequence of AgsA and various sHsps. Positions where four proteins have identical amino acids are boldfaced. Two or more identical amino acids in one position are indicated by plain text. Gaps are indicated by dashes. (B) Phylogenetic tree of the sHsps. Phylogenetic trees were constructed by using the PHYLIP package as described in Materials and Methods. Proteins (with accession numbers in parentheses) are as follows: mouse, Hsp27 (A53423); rat, Hsp27 (JN0924); dog, Hsp27 (JC4244); human, Hsp27 (HHHU27); chicken, Hsp25 (A39644); bullfrog, αB-crystallin (S54824); African clawed frog, Hsp30C (JN0274); alfalfa, Hsp18 (S16248); soybean, Hsp17.5 (T07629); common tobacco, Hsp18p (T03958); rice, Hsp17 (T04171); wheat, Hsp17 (HHWT17); Arabidopsis thaliana, Hsp22 (S71188); common sunflower, Hsp17.9 (S46310); Methanobacterium themoautotrophicum, Hsp17 (F69214); tomato, Hap17.6 (T07602); tomato (chloroplast), Hsp21 (T06324); common tobacco (chloroplast), Hsp26a (T02018); maize (plastid), Hsp26 (T03379); Thermotoga maritima, Hsp17 (T46658); Stigmatella aurantaca, Hsp SP21 (A49942); Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Hsp26 (P15992); Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Hsp16 (T40376); Pseudomonas aeruginosa IbpA (D83256); Escherichia coli IbpB (G65170); Legionella pneumophila, GspA (S49042); Vibrio cholerae, Hsp16 (D82373); Escherichia coli IbpA (A45245).