Figure 1.

Sequences and conservation of miR-9 and related miRNAs through evolution. (A) All vertebrate miR-9 sequences are all identical to insect miR-9a, displaying only the small differences in length at the 3′ end that are caused by differences in 3′ processing. Mature insect miR-9 paralogs, by contrast, often differ considerably in their middle and 3′ regions while maintaining orthology across species boundaries. (B) Stem-loop structures of Drosophila miR-9a and human miR-9-2 precursors. MiR-9a and miR-9 sequences are in red. The miR-9* sequence is in blue.