Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy of Intact Nuclear Pore Complexes

No methods proposed thus far have the sensitivity to measure the transport of single molecules through single nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) in intact cells. Here we demonstrate that fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) combined with real-time tracking of the center of mass of single NPCs in live, unperturbed cells allows us to detect the transport of single molecules in a reference system of a pore with high temporal (millisecond) and spatial (limited by diffraction) resolution. We find that the transport of the classical receptor karyopherin-beta 1 (Kap beta 1) is regulated so as to produce a peculiar distribution of characteristic times at the NPC. This regulation, which is spatially restricted to the pore, depends on the properties and metabolic energy of Kap beta 1. As such, this method provides a powerful tool for studying nucleocytoplasmic shuttling at the nanometer scale under physiological conditions.