FIG. 2.

Multiple alignment of the hypervariable regions of the vrrB ORFs from all observed B. anthracis allele types. Nucleic acid sequences from the hypervariable regions of the vrrB ORFs from all 11 observed allele types were aligned, optimizing for nucleotide conservation. The shaded rectangles indicate every other degenerative 9-bp repeat. The arrows indicate the positions of primers used to amplify the vrrB₁ and vrrB₂ regions. The asterisks indicate the positions of point mutations. The consensus deduced amino acid sequence is shown below the nucleic acid alignment. The table at the bottom provides the amplicon size and observed frequency of each vrrB₁ and vrrB₁ allele. The DIs for individual and combined regions are shown at the bottom of the table. Note that the H and I combined alleles are indistinguishable by PCR analysis and that the frequency of 0.04 is for both alleles taken together.