What is "antagomir"

n. Any of a class of chemically engineered oligonucleotides used to silence endogenous microRNA.

Antagomirs also known as anti-miRs or blockmirs are a class of chemically engineered oligonucleotides that prevent other molecules from binding to a desired site on an mRNA molecule. Antagomirs are used to silence endogenous microRNA (miR).

An antagomir is a small synthetic RNA that is perfectly complementary to the specific miRNA target with either mispairing at the cleavage site of Ago2 or some sort of base modification to inhibit Ago2 cleavage. Usually, antagomirs have some sort of modification, such as 2'- methoxy groups and phosphorothioates, to make them more resistant to degradation.