Alcaraz et al. BMC Genomics 2010, 11:332 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/11/332 Page 11 of 17 Figure 4 Bacillus selected sporulation and competence genes conservancy. In this heat map shows the presence/absence of the set of 185 sporulation and competence related genes according to KEGG’s BRITE hierarchies http://www.genome.jp/kegg/brite.html. Each column stands for a Bacillus strain and each row represents a gene and here are shown present (in gray) or absent genes (in black). Is possible to distinguish between 4 major clusters according to the conservancy level of the genes, (A) the first upper cluster stands for the sporulation core genes; (B) second is a group of sporulation genes diminished mostly in the extremophile and aquatic species of Bacillus; (C) cluster is defined as genes present in almost all the strains of B. subtilis’ related group but depleted in the B. cereus’ group; and (D) are B. subtilis’ specialized sporulation genes. A comprensive list of each cluster of genes is available in Additional file 2: Table S3. Figure Abbreviations: B. subtilis (bsu), B. pumilus(bpu), B. licheniformis ATCC 14580 (bli), B. licheniformis DSM13 (bld), B. halodurans (bha), O. iheyensis (oih), B. coahuilensis (bcoa), B. clausii (bcl), Bacillus sp. m3-13 (M3.13), G. kaustophilus (gka), Bacillus sp.NRRLB-14911 (b14911), B. cereusATCC 14579 (bce), B. weihenstephanensis (bwe), B. thuringiensis Al Hakam (btl), B. thuringiensis97-27 (btk), B. cereus ZK (bcz), B. cereus ATCC 10987 (bca), B. anthracis Sterne (bat), B. anthracis Ames (ban), B. anthracis Ames 0581 (bar).