Random, fragile, or correlated: Mechanisms of synteny decay in mammals
- 1Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115
- 2Department of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115
Abstract
We formalize three models of genome evolution, yielding analytical distributions of synteny block sizes between pairs of genomes. To evaluate each model, we fit theoretical synteny block size distributions to empirical distributions from a comparative analysis of nearly 200 mammalian genomes. Between the random breakage model (RBM), with uniformly distributed breakpoints, the fragile breakage model (FBM) with breakpoint hotspots, and what we term the correlated breakage model (CBM) with pairs of nearby breakpoints, we find that the FBM and CBM are far more consistent with mammalian genome evolution than the RBM. Inferred parameters of each model qualitatively agree with previously calculated rates of mammalian genome evolution. The FBM and CBM perform comparably with each other, suggesting that either model could serve as an improved null model of genome evolution to use in statistical tests for syntenic regions that are unlikely to exist due to random chance.
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BibTeX
@article{moffett2026random,
title = {{Random, fragile, or correlated: Mechanisms of synteny decay in mammals}},
author = {Alexander S. Moffett and Michele Di Pierro},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1073/pnas.2605030123},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2605030123},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Random, fragile, or correlated: Mechanisms of synteny decay in mammals
AU - Alexander S. Moffett
AU - Michele Di Pierro
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2605030123
UR - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2605030123
AB - We formalize three models of genome evolution, yielding analytical distributions of synteny block sizes between pairs of genomes. To evaluate each model, we fit theoretical synteny block size distributions to empirical distributions from a comparative analysis of nearly 200 mammalian genomes. Between the random breakage model (RBM), with uniformly distributed breakpoints, the fragile breakage model (FBM) with breakpoint hotspots, and what we term the correlated breakage model (CBM) with pairs of nearby breakpoints, we find that the FBM and CBM are far more consistent with mammalian genome evolution than the RBM. Inferred parameters of each model qualitatively agree with previously calculated rates of mammalian genome evolution. The FBM and CBM perform comparably with each other, suggesting that either model could serve as an improved null model of genome evolution to use in statistical tests for syntenic regions that are unlikely to exist due to random chance.
SN - 0027-8424
SN - 1091-6490
ER -