Ilustração de Argonaute protein and microRNA, illustration

Illustration of an argonaute protein bound to a guide strand (red) and passenger strand (orange) of double stranded microRNA (miRNA). The argonaute protein will separate the two strands. The passenger strand is degraded and the guide strand is incorporated into the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), a multiprotein complex responsible for the gene silencing process known as RNA interference (RNAi). The guide strand is used to recognise complementary mRNA (messenger RNA) that the argonaute protein then cleaves, rendering it inactive