Figure 1

Whole genome analysis of 61 strains of proteolytic C. botulinum and C. sporogenes. Each row of the heatmap represents a strain (indicated at right), and its branch on the dendrogram is coloured according to type of neurotoxin formed (indicated at left of heatmap; spo refers to C. sporogenes). Although lost at this resolution, each microarray probe is represented by a vertical column within this row, from left to right first the 19 probes for each CDS of ATCC 3502 plasmid pBOT3502, followed by probes for chromosomal CDSs, from CBO3648 to CBO001. The colour of each column in the heatmap is an indicator of test signal over reference (ATCC 3502) signal channel ratio. Yellow columns represent probes which hybridised to both test and reference isolates equally, those in blue hybridised more strongly to the reference strain, and those in red hybridised more strongly to the test strain. Microarray features with fluorescent signals lower than 100 units (background noise), plus those CDSs not represented on the microarray are coloured grey. Distance measurements between 0 and 1.0 are indicated in the non-linear scale underneath the dendrogram. Clades 1 to 9 (brackets at right), are groups of strains which cluster at a distance measurement value of 0.3. The four main regions of variability (clusters of blue-coloured columns) are CDSs associated with pBOT3502, the Flagellar Glycosylation Island (FGI), and the two prophages, Φ-CB1 and Φ-CB2 (indicated above heatmap).