FIGURE 1.

Multiple sequence alignment of Hfq from different species. The ortholog cluster multiple alignment of the amino acids sequences of Hfq proteins of several Clostridia and various Gram-positive or Gram-negative model species was performed by using ClustalW on the website http://mbgd.genome.ad.jp. Proximal face residues important for the interaction with RNA are highlighted in gray, those important for distal face interaction and at the rim are double underlined and underlined, respectively, both in the Ec-Hfq (Mikulecky et al. 2004; Zhang et al. 2013) and Cd-Hfq. The numbering is based on Ec-Hfq. The secondary structure is indicated by boxes (α-helix) and arrows (β sheets). The Sm motifs are boxed with dotted lines. The core structured part of Ec-Hfq and Cd-Hfq are boxed with plain lines.