Figure 2.

MicroRNA biogenesis and processing pathway. Arrows are indicating the way how microRNAs are processed and how they influence protein expression. Primary-miRNA (pri-miRNA) is transcribed from DNA and cleaved into precursor-miRNA (pre-miRNA), which is exported into the cytoplasm by Exportin-5 for further processing. The mature microRNA (miRNA) strand is assembled into the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) to bind mRNA and negatively regulates gene expression by mRNA degradation or by repression of the protein translation (as shown by the arrows pointing away from RISC respectively).