FIG. 5.

Comparisons of the predicted AgrD (A) and partial AgrC (B) products from S. aureus groups I to IV, Staphylococcus epidermidis, and Staphylococcus lugdunensis. The sequences were aligned with the CLUSTAL X software. The sequences are as follows: S. aureus group IV (GeneBank accession number AF288215), group I (GeneBank accession number U85097) (9), group II (GeneBank accession number AF001782), and group III (GeneBank accession number AF001783) and S. epidermidis (Z49220) (Se) (14) and S. lugdunensis (Sl) (GeneBank accession number AF173933). A + indicates a stop codon. All other marks were generated by CLUSTAL X; dashes indicate gaps, asterisks indicate fully conserved residues, and colons and periods, respectively, indicate strongly and weakly similar amino acid groups according to the software. AIP sequences are indicated in boldface.