refers to the pre-miRNA and the -miRNA. The convention for naming plant miRNAs excludes the hyphen; for example, miR156 or miR172 are well-described plant miRNAs. The genes encoding miRNAs are also named using the same three-letter prefix according to the conventions of the organism gene nomenclature. For examples, the official miRNAs gene names in some organisms are mir-1 in C. elegans and Drosophila, Mir1 in Rattus norvegicus, MIR25 in human, and MIR156 and MIR172 in Arabidopsis.

miRNAs with nearly identical sequences except for one