Fig. 1

Comparative analysis of expression levels of specific gene families among trichomonads. For our analysis we selected different trichomonad species, both commensal and parasitic ones, with a high diversity of host cells. The amount of expressed transcripts belonging to different housekeeping gene families or proteins possessing BspA and Pmp specific domains are represented as bubbles. On average the size of the transcribed gene families in T. vaginalis are doubled compared to the other trichomonads. In particular, the expression of genes belonging to the BspA and Pmp protein families are almost exclusively expanded in T. vaginalis