Nuclear pores. Architecture of the nuclear pore complex coat.
The nuclear pore complex (NPC) constitutes the sole gateway for bidirectional nucleocytoplasmic transport. Despite half a century of structural characterization, the architecture of the NPC remains unknown. Here we present the crystal structure of a reconstituted ~400-kilodalton coat nucleoporin complex (CNC) from Saccharomyces cerevisiae at a 7.4 angstrom resolution. The crystal structure revealed a curved Y-shaped architecture and the molecular details of the coat nucleoporin interactions forming the central "triskelion" of the Y. A structural comparison of the yeast CNC with an electron microscopy reconstruction of its human counterpart suggested the evolutionary conservation of the elucidated architecture. Moreover, 32 copies of the CNC crystal structure docked readily into a cryoelectron tomographic reconstruction of the fully assembled human NPC, thereby accounting for ~16 megadalton of its mass.
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. These authors contributed equally to this work.
Tobias
T
Stuwe
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. These authors contributed equally to this work.
Ana R
AR
Correia
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Daniel H
DH
Lin
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Marcin
M
Paduch
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Vincent T
VT
Lu
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Anthony A
AA
Kossiakoff
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. hoelz@caltech.edu.
André
A
Hoelz
D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D006801:Humans; D022022:Nuclear Pore / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D028861:Nuclear Pore Complex Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*
D028861:Nuclear Pore Complex Proteins; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins