Geographical distribution of <i>B. henselae</i> STs in different continents.

<p>The lower panel shows the ST distribution in European countries that were represented by at least 10 isolates.</p

Frequency of feline and human <i>B. henselae</i> isolates within each ST in correlation with the geographic origin of the isolates.

<p>Frequency of feline and human <i>B. henselae</i> isolates within each ST in correlation with the geographic origin of the isolates.</p

Correlation between ST and host species in 182 <i>B. henselae</i> isolates analysed.

a<p>Frequency of each ST among feline isolates</p>b<p>Frequency of each ST among human isolates</p>c<p>Frequency of an individual ST among all isolates</p>d<p>As determined by Fisher's exact test</p

Correlation between ST and geographic origin among 182 <i>B. henselae</i> isolates analysed.

a<p>North-western Europe including Denmark, Sweden, UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, France (isolates from Paris and Strasbourg), and Switzerland</p>b<p>Mediterranean region including Italy, Marseille (Urlly8 isolate), and Israel</p>c<p>As determined by chi square test</p>d<p>p values have a relative low reliability because of the small number of isolates in this ST</p

Geographic origin, host species and clinical source of <i>B. henselae</i> isolates.

a<p>BA, bacillary angiomatosis</p

Neighbour-joining tree of the concatenated sequences of <i>B. henselae</i> STs as reconstructed by MEGA4.

<p>1,000 bootstrap replicates were used to examine the confidence in the tree. The only node to score above 60 is the one leading to Group 1 (75%, as indicated), indicating that the delineation of Group 1 represents a real division in the <i>B. henselae</i> population.</p

Splits decomposition was used to detect evidence for a past history of recombination in the sequences.

<p>The extensive reticulation suggests that recombination has occurred relatively frequently. However, Group 1 remains distinct (as indicated by the filled oval).</p

Phylogenetic relationship between different <i>B. henselae</i> STs as determined by eBURST.

<p>A clonal complex contains STs that have 7 out of 8 alleles in common. ST7 is assigned as a singleton since it differed in 3–7 alleles from all other STs. The size of the circles relates to the frequency of the corresponding ST, and illustrates that the assigned primary founder of the major clonal complex (ST5) is a common clone.</p