Fig. 6

G-quadruplexes are sites of recombination in HSV-1. a The proportion of actual breakpoints and randomly selected breakpoints contained within G4-motifs was determined strain-wise and is consolidated in the violin plot. The median proportion of actual breakpoints within G4 motifs was significantly higher than that of randomized breakpoints within G4 motifs, suggesting that G4 motifs in the HSV-1 genome are enriched for breakpoints. b When the recombination breakpoint occurs within G4-motif in the parental strains, the G4-motif is often conserved (and not lost) in the process of recombination (i.e. the recombinant strain has a G4-motif in the same region). ‘+’ indicates presence of G4-motif at the breakpoint ‘-‘indicates absence of G4-motif at the breakpoint