Figure 2.

Illustration of the phase‐variable hsdS loci present in Salmonella enterica. Salmonella enterica subsp Enterica, serovar India SA20085604 contains two hsdS loci annotated as containing G_[n] tracts—S.Sen5604ORF3580 and S.Sen5604ORF16935. A, Alignment of these two genes was generated using Muscle and viewed using JalView overview feature. B, The region encoding TRD 1 is variable in the two hsdS genes (purple or green boxes) but identical in the region encoding TRD 2 (hatched box, yellow background). The remaining sequence shows high (>95% nucleotide) identity. Variation in the length of the G_[n] tracts could potentially result in four different HsdS proteins in a population, represented by different colored ovals (full‐length purple/yellow oval or two half purple ovals from S.Sen5604ORF3580; full‐length green/yellow oval or two half green ovals from S.Sen5604ORF16935), that would combine with an HsdM protein (blue oval) to produce four different M₂S methyltransferase variants