Alignment of <i>B</i>. <i>afzelii</i> K78 <i>ospC</i> sequence against the sequences of <i>B</i>. <i>afzelii</i> strains from public databases.

<p>A non-redundant set of partial <i>ospC</i> sequences according to BAFK78_B0019 bp 97–583, comprising 59 <i>B</i>. <i>afzelii</i> strains and the sequence of <i>B</i>. <i>burgdorferi</i> B31 as external root reference were included in the analyses. A: Maximum likelihood tree representation, re-rooted with <i>B</i>. <i>burgdorferi</i> B31 as outgroup. Clusters containing strains attributed to human infectivity are boxed, of which the previously identified groups were labelled A1–A8. The strains compared in this study are highlighted in blue. B: A recombination network representation is shown for the sequences in an unrooted distance phylogram. The pairwise homoplasy index test for the <i>B</i>. <i>afzelii</i> sequences (p = 7.8x10^-15) indicates significance for the presence of recombination events. The strains compared in this study are highlighted by a yellow background.