Biological complexity: nucleus pores (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, August 28, 2015, 14:28 (3375 days ago) @ David Turell

The nucleus is surrounded by a double membrane and has pores to allow passage of molecules in and out:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150827215625.htm-"Building on that work, the team has now solved the architecture of the pore's inner ring, a subcomplex that is central to the NPC's ability to serve as a barrier and transport facilitator. In order to the determine that architecture, which determines how the ring's proteins interact with each other, the biochemists built up the complex in a test tube and then systematically dissected it to understand the individual interactions between components. Then they validated that this is actually how it works in vivo, in a species of fungus.-***-"Together, the inner and outer rings make up the symmetric core of the NPC, a structure that includes 21 different proteins. The symmetric core is so named because of its radial symmetry (the two remaining subcomplexes of the NPC are specific to either the side that faces the cell's cytoplasm or the side that faces the nucleus and are therefore not symmetric). Having previously solved the structure of the coat nucleoporin complex and located it in the outer rings, the researchers knew that the remaining components that are not membrane anchored must make up the inner ring.-***-"The researchers also solved a number of crystal structures from other parts of the NPC and determined how they interact with components of the inner ring. In doing so they demonstrated that one such interaction is critical for positioning the channel in the center of the inner ring. They found that exact positioning is needed for the proper export from the nucleus of mRNA and components of ribosomes, the cell's protein-making complexes, rendering it critical in the flow of genetic information from DNA to mRNA to protein."-Comment: With 21 different proteins, this mechanism is a good example of irreducible complexity