Figure 2

Alignments and stem-loop structures of a novel miRNA cluster within the intron of a gene encoding a transcription factor. See Table 1 for naming and sequence locations of these miRNAs. There are two hairpins for the same miR-N1 (-1 and -2) in both Ae. aegypti and Cx. quinquefasciatus. Only the Ae. aegypti hairpin structures for the miR-N1 pre-miRNAs are shown. Aae-miR-N2 and cqu-miR-N3 are only found in Ae. aegypti and Cx. quinquefasciatus, respectively. Thus there are no alignments for these two miRNAs. Arrows point to the mature miRNA sequences from 5' to 3'. Dashed arrow for cqu-miR-N3 reflects the fact that we do not yet have the direct sequence for this miRNA. The mature cqu-miR-N3 sequence was predicted according to the conserved seed sequence shared with miR-N1 and miR-N2, which was confirmed by northern blots using anti cqu-miR-N3 as a probe (see Figure 7).