Dicer

An enzyme participating in RNA interference (RNAi)

Category:

Education

Tags:

• RNAi;
• RNA
• interference;
• biology;
• genetics

[RakuenOne]

@urs4ever86 retro means they replicate by inserting their own genes into host genome by REverse TRanscription...

[urs4ever86]

@ethanhines RNA viruses are found in groups 4 and 5 while retroviruses are in group 6, the deference between them is that retroviruses have an intermediate stage of DNA. Classification is mainly arbitrary since sometimes it's impossible to differentiate viruses on characteristics cause sometimes viruses fit into two or more groups. I personally believe that RNA viruses are more "Retro" than retroviruses

[ethanhines]

@urs4ever86 If "retro" means old and RNA came before DNA, then why aren't all RNA viruses such as Influenza, HepC, and Polio called Retroviruses?

[urs4ever86]

@ethanhines Retro means Old, so by definition Retroviruses came before Viruses, and this with "RNA came first" in mind, RNA came before DNA or Protein since RNA can replace both

[ethanhines]

@urs4ever86 with that in mind; does that mean that retro-viruses are infact not "retro" at all???

[urs4ever86]

@ethanhines of course it did, search for RNA World

[urs4ever86]

@ethanhines of course it did, search for RNA World

[ethanhines]

In my opinion RNA life came first

[scientificallyunstab]

wait,

has dicer been implicated with other RNA pathways?

if not then this is slightly misleading, as dicer doesn't just cleave and cleave and cleave strands of RNA, but rather cleaves the hairpin precursor microRNA (around 70 bp) to its double stranded mature form

[Exzi]

It's cool seeing an animation of it. :) We've always heard that about DNA but we know that it's RNA that we need to focus on now!