Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Sep 15.
Published in final edited form as: Methods. 2013 May 23;63(2):101–109. doi: 10.1016/j.ymeth.2013.05.007

Figure 1. Exogenous RNAi by shRNAs may compete with the microRNA pathway.

Figure 1

A) Schematic of the biogenesis pathway for miRNAs which requires Drosha and Dicer to sequentially and specifically cut the miRNA and shRNA precursor into a small RNA duplex. The Guide strand will be incorporated into the Argonaute (Ago1– 4) proteins and the Ago2-RISC targets mRNA degradation. shRNAs may compete with miRNAs for specific limiting factors like Ago2 and Exportin5. B) The secondary structure for the priand pre-miRNA-30 from mouse, top, and Xenopus, bottom, with the miR-30-5p noted in red and the miR-30-3p noted in blue. There is conservation in the mechanism that directs greater accumulation of miR-30-5p as the Guide strand (red) in both mouse (10 fold to 300 fold, (55)) and frog (3 fold, (56)).