Figure 1.

Amino acid sequence alignment of conserved regions of the horseshoe crab tachylectin-2 (1tl2), and tachylectin-2s from the anthozoans Oculina, Montastrea, Acropora and Nematostella. Black boxing indicates conserved sites, relative to the Oculina sequence. Red text highlights those positions in 1tl2 that are functional N-acetyl-sugar-binding sites [34]. The locations of the 40-amino acid tandem repeats characteristic of tachylectin-2 are indicated by the blue lines. Below the sequences, the predicted secondary structural elements of the Oculina tachylectin are shown relative to elements of the experimentally derived secondary structure of 1tl2.