Alignment of the ADAMTS13 spacer domain from different species. Above the sequence alignment a schematic domain structure of ADAMTS13 is depicted with the various different domains indicated; metalloprotease domain (MP), disintegrin-like (Dis), first thrombospondin type-I repeat (1), cysteine-rich domain (Cys-rich), spacer domain (Spacer), 2nd through 8th thrombospondin type-I repeats (2-8), and 2 CUB domains (CUB1-2). For the alignment of residues 560-681 of the ADAMTS13 spacer domain, predicted ADAMTS13 sequences from different species were derived from http://www.ensembl.org and the alignment was made with the ClustalW algorithm (http://www.ebi.ac.uk). Identical residues are in gray, and spacer domain residues Y658-Y665 are boxed.