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. 2017 Aug 23;7:9230. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-08043-5

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© The Author(s) 2017

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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The evolution of the metazoan Argonaute superfamily. The miRNA-class AGO, siRNA-class AGO and PIWI Argonaute lineages are conserved between sponges, cnidarians, nematodes and insects, while chordates only encode miRNA-class AGOs and PIWIs (the absence of the siRNA-class AGOs in vertebrates is depicted by a black stop sign). Several studies have identified that the miRNA-class AGOs in the fruit fly (Dme-Ago1), C. elegans (Cel-ALG1-2) and humans (Hsa-Ago1-4) can interact with miRNAs and mediate regulation of endogenous transcripts (indicated with black arrows), the siRNA-class AGOs of flies (Dme-Ago2) and C. elegans (Cel-RDE-1) play a crucial role in the defense against viruses (black arrows), and finally, the PIWI Argonautes in flies (Dme-Piwis: Ago3, Piwi and Aubergene), C. elegans (Cel-PRG1-2) and humans (Hsa-Piwil1-4) mediate piRNA-directed control of transposons (also depicted by black arrows). The siRNA-class AGOs are characterized by elevated rates of molecular evolution (depicted by lightning signs).