Figure 3.
Arm-switching model of miRNA evolution. (A) Schematic representation of arm switching. In one miRNA hairpin, the 3′ arm provides the mature miRNA. In a slightly modified hairpin, the mature miRNA is the one that comes from the 5′ arm. (B) An example of arm switching. According to our cloning data, the duplicated loci of mir-246 in C. remanei express the 5′ arm as mature miRNAs, whereas this locus in C. briggsae expresses the 3′ arm as mature miRNA.
