FIGURE 3.

Schematic representation of the metazoan tree of life, reporting the presence of big defensins in all the major phyla relevant in the context of this study. The topology of the tree follows the branching pattern resulting from a recent phylogenomic study (100). Taxa where big defensins have been reported are marked with a green background and those where big defensins are absent are marked with a red background. Taxa where no big defensins are present, but β-defensin-like peptides have been reported, are indicated with a light blue background. The hypothetical origin of the primordial big defensin gene is shown with a star. Inferred big defensin gene loss events are indicated with a red box and inferred partial exon loss events are indicated with a blue box.