Evidence for Co-Evolution between Human MicroRNAs and Alu-Repeats (original) (raw)
Figure 2
Sense Alu miRNA targets concentrate in areas with minimal sequence variation, antisense Alu miRNA target sites in areas with high sequence variation.
A sequence window of 8 nucleotides was moved over the sense Alu consensus (panel A) in order to measure (i) the total number of target sites defined by all human miRNAs seeds (both nucleotides 1–8 and 2–9) (blue line), and (ii) the level of conservation of the consensus Alu sequence (black line), the average conservation as a gray dashed line. Asterisks above the consensus sequence indicates sense Alu target sites that have over 250 “hits”. Below the consensus sequence, the miRNAs targeting the Alu sequences are shown using a color code that reflects target frequency (Supplementary Methods online). The most strongly recognized target site coincides with the best-conserved area of human Alu (nucleotides 34–37). The miRNA target sites and sequence conservation are shown for antisense Alu sequences (panel B). The panel design is s similar to (A), total numbers of target sites are illustrated by a red line, corresponding to antisense orientation of the Alu elements.