Journal
BIOPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 118, Issue 1, Pages 219-231Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2019.11.024
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Funding
- National Science Foundation Biological and Environmental Interactions of Nanoscale Materials [1833214]
- National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute [R01 CA228272]
- Israel Science Foundation [178/16]
- Israeli Centers for Research Excellence program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee [1902/12]
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The nuclear pore complex (NPC) employs the intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) from a family of phenylalanine-glycine-rich nucleoporins (FG-Nups) to control nucleocytoplasmic transport. It has been a long-standing mystery how the IDR-mediated mass exchange can be rapid yet selective. Here, we use a computational microscope to show that nanocompartmentalization of IDR subdomains leads to a remarkably elaborate gating structure as programmed by the amino acid sequences. In particular, we reveal a heterogeneous permeability barrier that combines an inner ring barrier with two vestibular condensates. Throughout the NPC, we find a polarized electrostatic potential and a diffuse thermoreversible FG network featuring mosaic FG territories with low FG-FG pairing fraction. Our theoretical anatomy of the central transporter sheds light into the sequence-structure-function relationship of the FG-Nups and provides a picture of nucleocytoplasmic mass exchange that allows a reconciliation of transport efficiency and specificity.
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