What is the difference between gene silencing in plants vs animals?

Question

One way cells can control gene expression is by silencing specific genes. Gene silencing is a cellular mechanism that occurs in both plants and animals that results in the silencing of the specific genes that are targeted by the cell.

Answer 1

Both use miRNA in gene regulation. In plants the pri-miRNA is cut into miRNA by a single Dicer enzyme- both the loop hairpin part and the lower stem. In animals the lower stem is cut by Drosha enzyme and further processing is done by Dicer.

In plants the miRNA has greater complementarity with their mRNA targets and usually cleave the target, and in animals there is usually only partial complementarity with a preference towards the 3' UTR and usually just block translation from happening rather than cleaving.

Overall though, they share similar functions and in fact, both use proteins from the Argonaute (AGO) family as an effector!