Figure 2.

Intercellular transcript regulation via miRNA transfer. miRNAs can enter into neighboring cells via gap junction-mediated transfer. This cartoon demonstrates the ability of a cell (on the left) to transcribe and process the pre-miRNA to mature (single stranded) microRNA. A mature microRNA gets incorporated into RISC (RNA-induced silencing complex) and can target the expression of mRNAs in the same cell via translation inhibition/ transcript degradation or may enter the adjoining cell(s) to inhibit the expression of a specific set of genes in the neighboring cells.