Figure 2. Analyses of the thylacine Col2a1 enhancer element.

(a) Sequence alignment of the thylacine PCR cloned Col2a1 enhancer. Identical alignment between species is shown by black boxes. The thylacine sequence was most similar to, but distinct from that of another marsupial, the tammar wallaby, Macropus eugenii. The black box outlines the minimal 18-bp element. Inverted repeats (arrows) surrounding the minimal element are shown with complementary nucleotides in red. The outer repeat is highly conserved between all mammals, but the inner repeat differs by 2 nucleotides in the thylacine. (b) Phylogenetic analysis of the thylacine Col2a1 enhancer. The thylacine sequence groups with the tammar wallaby, both of which are more similar to the human sequence than to mouse or rat. Numbers indicate bootstrap values based on 100 replicates.