Homologous residues that contribute most to the energy of association.

A) Homology between bovine decoron and bigylcan rendered as dark green for identical residues and light green for similar residues. Residues that are not common between the two proteins are rendered gray. B) Map of the decoron residues that most contribute to the energy of association with collagen for the 4 primary collagen receptors studied here (common and wide conformations for the d and e₁ band sites), see Table S1 for reference. The darker shade of yellow corresponds to residues that are ranked as contributing highly to the ligand-receptor interaction (methods, Table S1). C) As for A), except comparison is between rat and bovine decoron sequences.