(A) The graphical model representation of a sample HMM for sorting pathways. Variables

are unobserved intermediate sorting states at each level or each step.

are the emission responsible for protein sorting at each step.
S is the sequence and
F corresponds to the binary feature observations.
(B) The simplified HMM that maintains conditional independence between steps.
(C) A sample state space: The top block is the root and its outgoing arrows correspond to initial probabilities. Bottom nodes are compartment states. The blocks are states and the arrows are transitions, with transition probabilities labeled. The items listed inside a blocks are top features emitted by the states, and emission probabilities are given on the left. Diamond-shaped blocks are silent states that emit the background feature only.