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Originally published in Science Express on 4 October 2007
Science 26 October 2007:
Vol. 318. no. 5850, pp. 640 - 643
DOI: 10.1126/science.1145980
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Reports

Nanomechanical Basis of Selective Gating by the Nuclear Pore Complex

Roderick Y. H. Lim,1* Birthe Fahrenkrog,1* Joachim Köser,1{dagger} Kyrill Schwarz-Herion,1 Jie Deng,2 Ueli Aebi1

The nuclear pore complex regulates cargo transport between the cytoplasm and the nucleus. We set out to correlate the governing biochemical interactions to the nanoscopic responses of the phenylalanineglycine (FG)–rich nucleoporin domains, which are involved in attenuating or promoting cargo translocation. We found that binding interactions with the transport receptor karyopherin-ß1 caused the FG domains of the human nucleoporin Nup153 to collapse into compact molecular conformations. This effect was reversed by the action of Ran guanosine triphosphate, which returned the FG domains into a polymer brush-like, entropic barrier conformation. Similar effects were observed in Xenopus oocyte nuclei in situ. Thus, the reversible collapse of the FG domains may play an important role in regulating nucleocytoplasmic transport.

1 M. E. Müller Institute for Structural Biology, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Klingelbergstrasse 70, Basel 4056, Switzerland.
2 Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, 3 Research Link, Singapore 117602, Singapore.

{dagger} Present address: Concentris GmbH, Davidsbodenstrasse 63, P.O. Box 340, Basel 4012, Switzerland.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: roderick.lim{at}unibas.ch (R.Y.H.L.); birthe.fahrenkrog{at}unibas.ch (B.F.)

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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