"The molecular architecture of the nuclear basket" published in Cell

A new publication co-authored as corresponding author by Javier Fernandez Martinez from the Integrative Structural and Functional Characterization of Macromolecular Assemblies Laboratory of the Instituto Biofisika has been recently published in Cell. The paper titled "The molecular architecture of the nuclear basket" talks about the nuclear pore complex (NPC), the sole mediator of nucleocytoplasmic transport. Despite great advances in understanding its conserved core architecture, the peripheral regions can exhibit considerable variation within and between species. One such structure is the cage-like nuclear basket. Despite its crucial roles in mRNA surveillance and chromatin organization, an architectural understanding has remained elusive. Using in-cell cryo-electron tomography and subtomogram analysis, the authors explored the NPC’s structural variations and the nuclear basket across fungi (yeast; S. cerevisiae), mammals (mouse; M. musculus), and protozoa (T. gondii). Using integrative structural modeling, the authors computed a model of the basket in yeast and mammals that revealed how a hub of nucleoporins (Nups) in the nuclear ring binds to basket-forming Mlp/Tpr proteins: the coiled-coil domains of Mlp/Tpr form the struts of the basket, while their unstructured termini constitute the basket distal densities, which potentially serve as a docking site for mRNA preprocessing before nucleocytoplasmic transport.