Figure 2.

Example of MaxAlign processing. Example alignment, before (a) and after (b) MaxAlign. In the original unprocessed alignment (a), only the three middle columns would be included in a subsequent analysis (alignment area = 3 rows × 7 columns = 21). The first three columns have the same gap pattern. After MaxAlign processing (b) (resulting in removal of sequences A and B) only the last two columns would be excluded by having gaps (alignment area = 5 rows × 6 columns = 30).