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Updated: Jun 24, 2026

Single-Molecule Imaging of Nuclear Transport
Published on: June 9, 2010
Transport-related structures and processes of the nuclear pore complex studied through molecular dynamics
Lingling Miao1, Klaus Schulten
1Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
Abstract:
Nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) are selectively gated pathways between nucleoplasm and cytoplasm. Whereas small molecules can diffuse freely through NPCs, large molecules (>40 kD) can pass only when bound to transport receptors. The NPC central channel is filled with disordered proteins, rich in phenylalanine-glycine (FG) repeats, referred to as FG-nups. Our simulations, carried out at coarse-grained and all-atom levels, show that arrays of FG-nups tethered to a planar surface, at an FG-repeat density found in the NPC, form dynamic brush-like structures of multiprotein bundles, whereas individual FG-nups form dynamic globular structures. More than half of the FG-repeats are found on the surface of the bundles, offering a favorable environment for transport receptors. Binding to FG-repeats and a sliding motion of NTF2 induced by binding and unbinding to phenylalanines were observed when adding this transport receptor into one of the brush-like structures.
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