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. 2013 Aug 7;14(8):16280–16302. doi: 10.3390/ijms140816280

Figure 1.

Figure 1

miR biogenesis. Monocistronic or polycistronic miRs are transcribed by RNA polymerase II into long pri-miR transcripts. These pri-miRs are, subsequently, processed by RNase III Drosha complex to ~70 nt pre-miRs that are exported out of the nucleus and into the cytosol by Exportin-5. In the cytoplasm, the RNase III Dicer complex cleaves pre-miRs to double-stranded ~22 nt miRs. One strand is then selected and loaded onto an Argonaute protein, which is part of the miRISC complex. The single-stranded miR then serves as a guide for RNA interference based on the partial complementarity with the various RNA substrates.