Recognition of regulatory sites by genomic comparison

Availability of complete bacterial genomes opens the way to the comparative approach to the recognition of transcription regulatory sites. Assumption of regulon conservation in conjunction with profile analysis provides two l ines of independent evidence making it possible to make highly specific pre dictions. Recently this approach was used to analyze several regulons in eu bacteria and archaebacteria. The present review covers recent advances in t he comparative analysis of transcriptional regulation in prokaryotes and ph ylogenetic fingerprinting techniques in eukaryotes, and describes the emerg ing patterns of the evolution of regulatory systems. (C) 1999 Editions scie ntifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.