Abstract
In case of closely related bacterial genomes, segments of conserved gene order that are referred to synteny blocks are observed by mapping orthologs to each genome. In many cases, they share a stable structure consisting of synteny blocks, which are often called 'genome core'. This structure is a marker for the structural evolution in these genomes. They also possess variable genomic islands consisting of laterally transferred genes. Bacterial genomes are, therefore, envisaged as a mosaic of genomic core interspersed with genomic islands.
Existing software to find a genome core is based on combinatorial search of neighboring relationship of genes, but it is difficult to find a genome core and genomic islands simultaneously. We have previously reported positional profile method to detect both of them and the result of application to 16 cyanobacterial genomes. Here we report results of enhanced set of 36 cyanobacterial genomes and nodulating bacterial genomes.
