The overestimation of conservation using draft Marburg data also results in overestimation of the number of signature candidates (Figure 3 ). Samples of four draft targets plus one finished reference yield 43 signature candidates. A smaller sample size of only two draft targets and one finished reference generate upwards of 80 candidates. These results differ from those using finished genomes, where the lack of sequence conservation is more evident and there are zero TaqMan signatures conserved among all strains. Most combinations of four finished genomes are sufficient to eliminate nonconserved signatures ( Figure 3A ). Although predictions that there are 0 signature candidates shared among all finished strains may seem to argue against TaqMan methods, in fact this information provides important guidance for the development of TaqMan signatures with degenerate bases or a set of signatures that will, in combination, pick up all sequenced strains. Other analyses indicate that there are TaqMan signatures conserved among five of the six strains, so that two signatures would form a minimal set that could detect both the one divergent and the other five strains.