Events at the Pore-Complex

Abstract

The background covered in the first three chapters puts us in a position to review the current trends of experimental research on nucleocytoplasmic transport. Most contemporary studies are predicated on the assumption that ‘transport’ can be equated with ‘binding to the nuclear envelope and translocation through the pore-complex’, a semantic convention that materially affects the design of experiments and the interpretation of results (chapter 1). A less arbitrary use of ‘transport’ leads to interpretations that are sometimes less straightforward but may be more internally consistent. For instance, data from experiments designed to elucidate translocation have occasionally elicited references to ‘(intra) nuclear transport’ and ‘nucleoskeleton’ in 1990s publications, betokening some admission of confusion about what is actually being investigated. However, the fact that a consensus of contemporary nucleocytoplasmic transport researchers presume that their main if not sole focus of interest is the pore-complex requires us to try to review the literature in this same light. The difficulties attendant on their perspective will become apparent as we proceed.KeywordsNuclear EnvelopeNuclear ImportNuclear Pore ComplexNuclear PeripherymRNA ExportThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.