Emergence of distinct syntenic density regimes is associated with early metazoan genomic transitions.

Our study provides first evidence for evolutionary transitions between different modes of microsyntenic block regulation that coincide with key events of metazoan evolution. Moreover, the microsyntenic profiling strategy and interactive online application (Syntenic Density Browser, available at: http://synteny.csb.univie.ac.at/ ) we present here can be used to explore regulatory properties of microsyntenic blocks and predict their coexpression in a wide-range of animal genomes.