AGO2 is the only member with catalytic activity in Argonaute family and contains four functional core domains, which are N domain, PAZ domain, MID domain, and PIWI domain from N-terminal to C-terminal. In traditional view, AGO2 serves as the catalytic engine of the RNA induced silencing complex and plays an important role in small RNAs guided post transcriptional gene silencing, including mRNA degradation and translational repression. Moreover, AGO2 also plays multiple roles in gene regulation processes in nuclei, such as chromatin remodeling, transcriptional repression and activation, double-strand break repair and alternative splicing. Recent studies have also implicated AGO2 in several other cellular processes, including alternative polyadenylation, translational activation, and transposon repression.

AGO2是Argonaute家族中唯一具有催化活性的成员，从N端到C端包含四个功能核心域，分别是N域，PAZ域，MID域和PIWI域。在传统观点上，AGO2充当RNA诱导沉默复合物的催化引擎，并在转录后基因沉默引导的小RNA（包括mRNA降解和翻译抑制）中发挥重要作用。此外，AGO2在细胞核的基因调控过程中也起着多种作用，例如染色质重塑，转录抑制和激活，双链断裂修复和选择性剪接。最近的研究也将AGO2牵连到其他几种细胞过程中，包括替代的聚腺苷酸化，翻译激活和转座子抑制。