Simulations of nuclear pore transport yield mechanistic insights and quantitative predictions

To study transport through the nuclear pore complex, we developed a computational simulation that is based on known structural elements rather than a particular transport model. Results agree with a variety of experimental data including size cutoff for cargo transport with (30-nm diameter) and without (<10 nm) nuclear localization signals (NLS), macroscopic transport rates (hundreds per second), and single cargo transit times (milliseconds). The recently observed bimodal cargo distribution is predicted, as is the relative invariance of single cargo transit times out to large size (even as macroscopic transport rate decreases). Additional predictions concern the effects of the number of NLS tags, the RanGTP gradient, and phenylalanine-glycine nucleopore protein (FG-Nup) structure, flexibility, and cross-linking. Results are consistent with and elucidate the molecular mechanisms of some existing hypotheses (selective phase, virtual gate, and selective gate models). A model emerges that is a hybrid of a number of preexisting models as well as a Brownian ratchet model, in which a cargo-karyopherin complex remains bound to the same FG-Nups for its entire trajectory through the nuclear pore complex until RanGTP severs the cargo-Nup bonds to effect release into the nucleus.