FIG. 5.

Nucleotide sequence alignment of the upstream regions of the vspA OFF, vspA ON, vspO ON, vspC ON, vspF ON, and vspC OFF genes. Identical nucleotides are shown by dark, shaded boxes. The name of each vsp gene and its expression state (ON or OFF) are shown on the left. Numbers above sequences indicate nucleotide position relative to the initiation codon. The position of the putative transcriptional start sites (+1) is indicated by an arrow. A prokaryotic ς⁷⁰ -dependent consensus sequence (−10) and a ribosome binding site (SD) are overlined. The positions of the two-vsp cassettes (nos. 1 and 2) are bracketed on the right. The arrow at position −71 marks the boundary between these two vsp cassettes. The position of the 35-bp region vis is indicated by a broken line. The binding site for the EX-I is marked by a solid line.