The yeast nuclear pore complex: composition, architecture, and transport mechanism

An understanding of how the nuclear pore complex (NPC) mediates nucleocytoplasmic exchange requires a comprehensive inventory of the molecular components of the NPC and a knowledge of how each component contributes to the overall structure of this large molecular translocation machine. Therefore, we have taken a comprehensive approach to classify all components of the yeast NPC (nucleoporins). This in-volved identifying all the proteins present in a highly enriched NPC fraction, determining which of these pro-teins were nucleoporins, and localizing each nucleo-porin within the NPC. Using these data, we present a map of the molecular architecture of the yeast NPC and provide evidence for a Brownian affinity gating mecha-nism for nucleocytoplasmic transport. Key words: nuclear pore complex • nucleoporins • nucleocytoplasmic transport • mass spectrometry • pro-teomic