{"id":349327,"date":"2025-12-15T10:26:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T10:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/349327\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T10:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T10:26:07","slug":"afm-captures-dynamic-nuclear-pore-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/349327\/","title":{"rendered":"AFM Captures Dynamic Nuclear Pore Complex"},"content":{"rendered":"

Original story from the University of Basel (Switzerland).<\/a><\/p>\n

Nuclear pore complexes are more dynamic than previously thought, reshaping our understanding of a vital transport process in cells.<\/p>\n

An international study led by the University of Basel<\/a> (Switzerland) has discovered that nuclear pore complexes (NPC) \u2013 tiny gateways in the nuclear membrane \u2013 are not rigid or gel-like as once thought. Their interiors are dynamically organized, constantly moving and rearranging. The findings reshape our understanding of a vital transport process in cells and have implications for diseases and potential therapies.<\/p>\n

Imagine the cell\u2019s nucleus as a bank vault protected by a highly sophisticated security system: the NPC. Only proteins carrying the correct \u2018key\u2019 \u2013 specialized transport factors \u2013 are granted exclusive access. This selective control over what enters and exits the nucleus is essential for ensuring proper communication between the genome protected inside it and the cellular machinery outside.<\/p>\n

\"\"Infographic: Investigating biomechanics with atomic force microscopy<\/a><\/p>\n

In this infographic, we dive into how AFM works, the technical features one must consider and how it can be implemented for biomechanical investigation.<\/p>\n

Nanoscience leads to new biological insights<\/p>\n

Despite its importance, the NPC\u2019s inner workings have remained a mystery. Its transport channel is lined with highly flexible protein \u2018threads\u2019 \u2013 the FG nucleoporins (FG Nups) \u2013 that create a selective barrier whose ultra-fine organization has eluded even the most powerful electron microscopes. Because the FG Nups can form gel-like assemblies outside of cells, older models have compared the NPC\u2019s function to a rigid sieve.<\/p>\n

Now, a team led by Argovia Professor for Nanobiology Roderick Lim from the Biozentrum and the Swiss Nanoscience Institute at the University of Basel, has used high-speed atomic force microscopy (AFM) to film never-seen-before nanometer-scale movements with millisecond resolution directly inside the pore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NPC barrier is loosely organized by a mobile central plug, whose identity has long been enigmatic. It turns out to consist of a dynamic mixture of transport factors, cargo molecules, and FG Nups that comingle along the pore\u2019s central axis. This creates a highly adaptable system that reinforces the barrier while ensuring fast selective transport,\u201d explained Lim.<\/p>\n

Go with the flow<\/p>\n

The team uncovered this dynamic organization while studying NPCs from yeast cells. High-speed AFM movies also revealed highly fluid FG Nup movements that \u2018radiated\u2019 towards the central plug inside the pore.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter prolonged incubation, the central plug of NPCs disappeared but was restored by adding transport factors,\u201d reported Toshiya Kozai, first author of the study. Remarkably, the transport factors also replicated NPC-like barrier function in artificial nanopores, demonstrating the generality of this behavior.<\/p>\n

Comparing NPCs and hydrogels<\/p>\n

NPCs have often been compared to hydrogels. \u201cThis is because FG Nups form hydrogels in vitro \u2013 in a test tube \u2013 but these assemblies are thousands of times larger than NPCs. Plus, they consist of tangled fiber-like structures that are simply too big to fit inside an NPC, let alone the entire hydrogel body itself,\u201d explained Lim. \u201cWhen we examined them more closely, we found that the hydrogels were riddled with holes of irregular shapes and sizes \u2013 much like a kitchen sponge. Many of these holes were as large as NPCs or even larger, and could potentially mimic NPC-like behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

The self-organizing, dynamic behavior revealed in this study offers a unified view of NPCs that aligns with long-standing structural and biochemical observations \u2013 with implications ranging from fundamental cell biology to the design of smart filters and drug delivery systems. Notably, restraining the pore\u2019s dynamic state impeded selective transport into the nucleus, highlighting how essential such behavior is for the cell to function properly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next challenge is to understand how cells fine-tune these remarkable nanomachines in response to changing needs \u2013 how the pores adjust to stress, regulate growth, and when they get jammed, contribute to disease,\u201d concluded Michael Rout, Professor at Rockefeller University<\/a> (NY, USA), who co-led the work.<\/p>\n

This article has been republished from the following\u00a0materials<\/a>.\u00a0Material may have been edited for length and\u00a0house style. For further information, please contact the cited source. Our press release publishing policy can be accessed\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Original story from the University of Basel (Switzerland). Nuclear pore complexes are more dynamic than previously thought, reshaping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[192550,64,63,192551,192552,73040,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-349327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-atomic-force-microscopy","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-cell-transport","12":"tag-nuclear-pore-complex","13":"tag-nucleus","14":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}