Fig. 1.

Canonical miRNA biogenesis and arm switching schema. (A) Biogenesis of miRNA is shown from transcription of the primary miRNA to targeting of mRNA via the RISC complex. (B) Argonaute (AGO) sorting and selection of the two strands of miRNA duplex are shown. The two arms are labelled with red and green, respectively. (C) Arm switching schema is shown. The blue line represents the pre-miRNA also known as the hairpin. The red and green lines represent the locations of the miR-5p and miR-3p arms, respectively. The thickness of the red or green line indicates the expression level.