Dicer Antibody

Dicer is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the DICER1 gene. It is mapped to 14q32.13. The gene, a member of the ribonuclease III (RNaseIII) family, is involved in the generation of microRNAs (miRNAs), which modulate gene expression at the posttranscriptional level. The enzyme possesses an RNA helicase motif containing a DEXH box in its amino terminus and an RNA motif in the carboxy terminus. It is required by the RNA interference and small temporal RNA (stRNA) pathways to produce the active small RNA component that represses gene expression. In addition, it is required for formation of the RNA induced silencing complex (RISC). Dicer also cleaves double-stranded RNA to produce short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) which target the selective destruction of complementary RNAs.