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. 2014 Jan 27;9(1):e86153. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0086153

Figure 6. Model Depicting the Evolution of the Soy-miR15/49 Family from an Inverted Duplication of a Neutral Invertase Gene Fragment.

Figure 6

A neutral invertase gene fragment containing parts of its intron 4 (blue line) and exon 5 (blue and light blue rectangle) was linked to a short LTR terminal fragment (red line) and a short sequence of unknown origin (black line). This complex DNA arrangement underwent an inverted duplication event, which resulted in a long inverted repeat fragment (IR). Subsequently, this long IR was amplified and transposed to different chromosomes. One copy on chromosome 3 experienced a deletion of a short inverted sequence (light blue rectangles) at its center region, thereby generating a shortened IR structure. This shortened IR went through a series of local amplification events to produce IR1-7, which further evolved to the soy-miR15/49 family. The hairpin structure of MIR15a and its miRNA and miRNA* are shown at the bottom.