Fig. 5
Analysis of leucine rich repeat containing proteins found in cluster IV. a Expression profiles for 20 Striga hermonthica genes encoding proteins with at least one leucine rich repeat (LRR) domain, which were significantly upregulated at 7 dpi when grown on NERICA 7 (present in cluster IV in Fig. 1c). Plots are ordered according to expression intensity (measured by Fragments Per Kilobase Million (FPKM)) at 7 dpi, from lowest (top left) to highest (bottom right). The red asterisk indicates one of the most strongly upregulated genes (SHERM_18835, log2(fold change) = 12.54) that was the closest match to SHR4z, a virulence factor from the closely related species, S. gesnerioides. Numbers in the top left of each plot denote the log2(fold change) at day 7 compared with the pre-attachment haustoria stage (as determined by DESeq2). b Maximum likelihood tree and multiple sequence alignment of the closest match found after searching the SHR4z protein sequence against the proteome of each plant species included in this analysis. Numbers at branch nodes represent bootstraps for 50 replications. Leucine amino acids are highlighted green in the alignment and show a more similar pattern of distribution for the three Striga species. The table insert shows amino acid percentage identity for each protein match against the SHR4z