Fig. 3

The 11 newly discovered T. vaginalis introns are classified into two types based on their sequence properties. Types A (top) and B (bottom) fit closely with the introns described by Vanacova et al. [15] and Deng et al. [16], respectively. The nucleotides of the newly discovered introns that are identical to the previously identified introns [15, 16] are shaded in grey. The branch site sequence, initially described as identical to the yeast consensus [26], is underlined with the red arrowhead indicating the branch adenosine. The distance in nucleotides (nt) between the 5' SS and the motif that encompasses the BS and 3' SS is indicated. Based on the intron nucleotide sequences, the consensus sequences for intron types A and B are shown below each alignment. Nucleotide ambiguity represents: ‘W’ to A or T; ‘Y’ to T or C; ‘H’ to A, C or T and ‘{1,2}’ specifies that ‘H’ can be one or two nucleotides