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DICER
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Diagram illustrating RNA interference, showing how both nuclear-encoded miRNA and synthetic double-stranded RNA are processed by enzymes like Dicer and RISC to cleave target mRNA, resulting in gene silencing.
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DICER

enzyme
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Diagram illustrating RNA interference, showing how both nuclear-encoded miRNA and synthetic double-stranded RNA are processed by enzymes like Dicer and RISC to cleave target mRNA, resulting in gene silencing.
RNA interference RNA interference (RNAi) is a genetic regulatory system that functions to silence the activity of specific genes. RNAi occurs naturally, through the production of nuclear-encoded pre-microRNA (pre-miRNA), and can be induced experimentally, using short segments of synthetic double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). The synthetic dsRNA employed is typically either a small hairpin RNA (shRNA) or a short interfering RNA (siRNA). In both the natural and the experimental pathways, an enzyme known as DICER is necessary for the formation of miRNA from pre-miRNA or of siRNA from shRNA. The miRNA or siRNA then binds to an enzyme-containing molecule known as RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). The miRNA-RISC or siRNA-RISC complex binds to target, or complementary, messengerRNA (mRNA) sequences, resulting in the enzymatic cleavage of the target mRNA. The cleaved mRNA is rendered nonfunctional and hence is “silenced.”

The enzyme DICER is crucial in RNA interference (RNAi), a process within eukaryotic cells that silences gene expression. After a precursor microRNA (pre-miRNA) is transcribed, DICER cleaves it into a mature microRNA (miRNA) approximately 20 nucleotides long. This mature miRNA then binds to an RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). The miRNA guides the RISC to a complementary messenger RNA (mRNA) sequence, leading to the cleavage of the mRNA and preventing it from being translated into a protein. This mechanism effectively silences the targeted gene. RNAi also serves as a defense against RNA viruses and can suppress the activity of transposons, or "jumping genes". In research, synthetic double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) is processed by DICER into short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) to study gene function or develop potential therapies for diseases like cancer and macular degeneration.1

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  1. RNA interference
  2. RNA interference

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