FIG. 1.

Schematic depicting perfectly complementary argonaute (Ago)2-mediated RNA interference (RNAi) in mammalian cells. RNAi triggers with the canonical siRNA structure do not require Dicer processing, whereas longer RNAi triggers will be processed by Dicer to enter the RNAi pathway. There is some evidence that longer RNAi triggers can be loaded into Ago2/RNA induced silencing complex (RISC) directly, but this model remains to be thoroughly tested. Red strands=passenger strands. Blue strands=guide strands. Figure is not drawn to scale.