Figure 3.

The npc83 is the miR869A precursor and is up-regulated in dcl4 mutants. The npc83 transcript encodes several small RNAs, notably miR869 (A), that are produced from a highly stable RNA-secondary stem structure (Z-score = 16). The position of the miRNA and detected siRNAs on the stem-loop of this npcRNA is indicated in B. (C) Expression of the MIR869A precursor was analyzed in dcl1-9, dcl2, dcl3, and dcl4 mutants and Col-0 seedlings by real-time RT-PCR. Data was normalized with ACT2 (AT3G18780), and values for Col-0 were arbitrarily fixed to 1. Two biological replicates gave similar results, and a representative example (SDs of technical replicates) is shown.