Fall 2001

Figure 1 shows a TaxPlot in which E. coli K12 has been selected as the reference genome for comparison of two strains of H. pylori, J99 and 26695. Each point in the figure represents a single E. coli protein. The X and Y coordinates represent the BLAST score for the protein’s closest match in the two strains of H. pylori. There are 217 E. coli proteins that are equally similar to proteins in the two H. pylori strains, as shown by the points lying on the central diagonal. E. coli has 678 proteins with greater similarity to H. pylori strain J99 (if only marginally), and 687 proteins with greater similarity to H. pylori strain 26695. Overall, the proteomes of the two H. pylori strains appear to be equally similar to that of E. coli. However, a few significant differences between the H. pylori strains show up as off-diagonal points toward the left-hand portion of the plot. These points represent proteins in E. coli that better match in one strain of H. pylori than in the other.