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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 May 9.
Published in final edited form as: Mol Cell. 2013 Apr 18;50(3):356–367. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2013.03.015

Figure 6. Akt3-Mediated Phosphorylation of Ago2 is a Molecular Switch Between Target mRNA Cleavage and Translational Repression.

Figure 6

Ago2 is capable of cleaving miRNA-targeted mRNAs or directing them for translational repression, which is dependent on its S387 phosphorylation status. This is dictated by Akt3, MK2 or to a lesser extent Akt1 or Akt2. Ago2 unphosphorylated at S387 maintains high endonucleolytic cleavage activity which results in suppressed expression of developmental genes. Ago2 phosphorylated at S387 switches to high translational repression which results in suppressed expression of tumor suppressor genes.