TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING THE 3-DIMENSIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE NUCLEAR-PORECOMPLEX AT THE MOLECULAR-LEVEL

Over the past two years there has been significant progress in elucida ting the three-dimensional structure of the nuclear pore complex, and in identifying and characterizing some of its molecular constituents. An important advance has been the localization in three dimensions of three distinct nucleoporins within the nuclear pore complex. Another h ighlight has been the development of a procedure to isolate milligram quantities of nuclear pore complexes from yeast, which opens the possi bility of combining genetic analyses with structural and functional st udies. Nevertheless, there remain a number of key questions and ambigu ities relating to the existence, conformation and functional significa nce of distinct nuclear pore complex components. Here we review these advances and discuss some of the remaining controversies in this excit ing area of nucleocytoplasmic trafficking.