BMC Genomics 2007, 8:271 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/8/271 (FAig) uSrtaen1dard stacked-pairwise visualization (smooth graph) of Mulan alignments of NOS-2 gene promoter (A) Standard stacked-pairwise visualization (smooth graph) of Mulan alignments of NOS-2 gene promoter. The human sequence (from -10 kb to +1 kb) was selected as the reference species. Repeats were masked in all species with RepeatMasker (Mulan settings); green regions in the base sequence indicate the human repeats. The graphical representations of the other sequences are displayed according to their similarity to the base sequence: the closer they are to human, the higher is the conservation (top sequences are less conserved). Parameters selected for detection of evolutionarily conserved regions (ECR) were 90 bp minimum length and minimum similarity of 65% (50% bottom cut-off). Red indicates regions that are upstream from the transcription start site; pink regions are downstream from it. Two conserved motifs in rodent NOS-2 pro- moters indicate the presence of distal and fragmented sequences that are very similar to the unique enhancer region conferring NF-κB regulation in human NOS-2. (B) A schematic representation of the hypothetical translocation of these sequences in human and rodents; double head arrows indicate the positional translocation. Page 3 of 10 (page number not for citation purposes)