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. 2005 Sep;6(9):831–835. doi: 10.1038/sj.embor.7400507

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Schematic of the distribution of short interspersed elements in human and mouse genomes. (A) The Alu repetitive element is highly abundant in the human genome, and inverse copies tend to form transient double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) structures. (B) The mouse genome contains four main, divergent, shorter types of short interspersed element, named B1, B2, B4 and MIR. This means that the intramolecular coupling of adjacent, inverted repeats from the same family is significantly less likely compared with humans. Such intramolecular dsRNA structures are essential for adenosine deaminases that act on RNA (ADAR) activity.