核孔复合体的动态组装

核孔是介导所有大分子入核出核的唯一通道。在整个生命活动中,核孔复合体的组成蛋白总是处于动态变化中。核孔复合体的动态组装改变了核质转运状态,并最终改变了细胞的功能。     

核孔复合体的结构组装及其生理功能

核孔复合体(nuclear pore complex,NPC)介导了大分子物质在细胞质与细胞核之间的穿梭运动。NPC定位于核膜,形成一个疏水通道,使得蛋白质等大分子物质与转运受体结合,进行跨膜转运。这种经核孔复合体进行的跨核膜转运在细胞增殖、细胞分化以及个体发育等生命活动中发挥了重要的生理功能。     

植物核孔蛋白研究进展

核孔复合物(nuclear pore complex,NPC)位于核膜,是控制细胞核与细胞质之间进行蛋白质和mRNA等大分子物质转运的唯一通道.模式植物拟南芥的核孔复合物由30多种多拷贝的核孔蛋白(nucleoporins,NUPs)构成,根据它们参与形成的亚基可分为外环、内环、连接、跨膜、中心FG(phenylala...     

Karyopherins家族与核孔转运的研究进展

大分子物质入核是靠其核内定位序列（NLS）,而核内输出是靠其核输出信号（NES）,不同的NLS和NES直接或靠配体间接的被转运受体识,目前确定的转运受体都属于同一家族－Karyopherins家族,它们可以在核和胞质间穿梭,可以与小的Ran GTPase以及核孔蛋白相结合,Ran GTPase调节运受体与转运物,配体,核孔蛋白间的结合,而这是决定核孔转运的关键。然而一部分受体转运物复合物通过核孔复合体（NPC）并不需要Ran水解GTP。     

浅析核孔复合体的功能——从一道高考题谈起

核孔复合体可以看作是一种特殊的跨膜运输蛋白复合体,并且是一个双功能、双向性的亲水性核质交换通道.双功能表现在它有2种运输方式:被动扩散和主动运输.从一道高考题着手,对核孔复合体2种物质运输方式进行了粗浅的分析.     

通过核质转运调节细胞凋亡的蛋白质

凋亡,也称Ⅰ型程序性细胞死亡,是细胞在面临严重威胁时发起的保护性主动死亡机制. 凋亡对于个体的生长发育及各种生理功能具有不可或缺的作用. 作为涉及整个细胞的复杂过程,凋亡的顺利进行有赖于众多凋亡相关因子的协调合作与精确调控. 细胞受到凋亡刺激后,核内的某些蛋白质转运出核,将凋亡信号传递到核外,胞质内的多种蛋白质则转运入核,在细胞核这一信息整合的大本营直接发挥作用. 这种双向交流机制在胞核与胞质间建立起密切的联系,同时使得相关蛋白质在特定场所发挥促进或抑制凋亡的作用,确保凋亡信号及时、通畅、有序地传递. 因此,蛋白质的核质转运作为介导胞核与胞质物质交换、信号交流的关键机制,在凋亡过程中就显得尤为重要. 本文主要就核质转运的机制、通过核质转运调节凋亡的蛋白质及其作用机理作一综述.     

免疫胶体金标记显示波形纤维与核孔复合体的结合

中间纤维与细胞核的关系是一个亟待解决解决的重要问题。本文采用火鸡红细胞作为研究材料,首先用细胞分级抽提结合免疫印迹反应显示火鸡红细胞中间纤维蛋白为波形纤维蛋白。然后,我们采用细胞分级抽提结合包埋前免疫胶体金标记的方法显示胞质中间纤维被抗波形纤维蛋白抗体－蛋白Ａ－胶体金特异标记。同时,我们显示结合于核孔复合体上的胞质纤维被抗波形纤维蛋白抗体－蛋白Ａ－胶体金所特异标记。本文结果表明,结合于核孔复合体上     

溶质转运蛋白超家族的功能及结构研究进展

溶质转运蛋白(solute carriers,SLC)超家族是人类细胞膜(含胞内膜)上最重要的膜转运蛋白家族之一,它参与了细胞间的物质运输、能量传递、营养代谢、信号传导等重要生理活动。SLC转运蛋白超家族包含52个亚家族,共有400多名成员。研究表明,人类基因突变所致SLC蛋白表达异常或功能缺陷与糖尿病、高血压、抑郁症等多种重大疾病密切相关,使得该家族蛋白的功能研究近年来备受关注。SLC转运家族蛋白三维结构的解析有助于阐述其底物选择性结合与转运的精确分子机制,为研究该家族功能相关疾病的分子机理以及针对理性药物研发奠定了精细的三维结构基础。本文对近年来溶质转运蛋白超家族的结构及功能研究进展进行了总结,试图对该家族的共性规律进行阐述。     

基于核酸定量的核质分离质控方案

目的:拟建立一种方便快捷、经济有效的细胞核质分离鉴定方法。方法:本研究从DNA水平进行核质分离鉴定,选择GAPDH、ND1分别作为细胞核和细胞质标志基因,并根据GAPDH及ND1序列保守区设计引物,基于荧光定量PCR方法定性检测核质分离的效果。随后将本鉴定方法应用于其他种类细胞(BEAS-2B细胞、GT1-7细胞)及组织(小鼠心脏、肝脏、大脑)的核质分离鉴定。结果:在293T细胞应用该鉴定方法鉴定核质分离效果,结果显示:GAPDH、ND1在核组、质组中的含量存在明显差异,其中核标志基因GAPDH在细胞核中的比例达到了95%以上,质标志基因ND1在细胞质中的比例也达到了90%左右,这与从RNA水平及蛋白水平鉴定核质分离的结果一致。在其他种类的细胞(BEAS-2B细胞、GT1-7细胞)及组织(小鼠心脏、肝脏、大脑)应用该方法结果显示:细胞核组分中质标志基因ND1含量比293T细胞的有所增加,但仍可以实现核质分离鉴定。结论:本研究所建立的核质分离质控方法可以实现从DNA水平进行核质分离的鉴定,该方法更加经济、快捷。     

核孔复合物的结构、组装及功能

核孔复合物(NPC)是一个巨型分子复合物,相对分子质量约125×106。脊椎动物的NPC由大约30种蛋白质组成,这些蛋白质的序列大多具有FG(苯丙氨酸-甘氨酸)重复序列。NPC锚定于双层核膜上,并且是物质跨核膜运输的惟一通道,它可快速介导小分子物质的被动运输以及大分子物质的主动运输过程。虽然NPC具有较大的相对分子质量和复杂的结构,但它可在细胞分裂过程中分离并重新组装。生物大分子经NPC的跨核膜运输直接影响真核细胞的生长、增殖、分化、发育等多种生命活动。本文重点介绍NPC的结构、组装及其功能特点。     

Nuclear electrophysiology

Conclusions Patch-clamp, fluorescence microscopy and high-resolution EM have yielded new data which question current concepts of ion transport across the nuclear envelope. The current challenge is to prove that NICs play an important role in nuclear function either through their identity with NPCs or parts thereof. Electrophysiological designs must incorporate cell biology approaches as done for putative protein-conducting channels of the ER (Simon & Blobel, 1991, 1992).Preliminary studies (J.O. Bustamante et al., in preparation), illustrated in Fig. 1, confirm that, as is the case of NPCs, NICs cannot function in an extracellular environment deprived of cytosolic factors. Our current efforts aim at clarifying if the lysate factors required for macromolecular transport through NPCs (e.g., Adam et al., 199la,b) are those required for NIC open-shut gating. Monoclonal antibodies to identified NPC proteins should be helpful in furthering the identification of NICs with NPCs. Our observation of blockade of NIC activity with wheat germ agglutinin, discussed above, supports the idea that NPCs are the structural foundation for NICs. Should NICs be identified with NPCs or otherwise proven essential to nucleocytoplasmic transport, NIC response to cytoplasmic signals would suggest that they are relevant to mediating gene control by transduction and other cytosolic signals (Karin, 1991; Davis, 1992). NIC influence on intranuclear free ion concentrations is potentially important to controlling gene activation, repression, as well as the efficiency and fidelity of gene expression (e.g., Kroeger, 1963; Lezzi & Gilbert, 1970; Leake et al., 1972; Morgan & Curran, 1986; Li & Rokita, 1991; Lippard, 1993). As electrophysiological and cell/molecular biology approaches merge, the prospects improve for the field of nuclear electrophysiology.The author thanks (in alphabetical order) the intellectual contributions of Drs. Christopher W. Akey, Gregory S. Beckler (Promega), Louis J. DeFelice, Colin Dingwall, Alexander Fabiato, Julio M. Fernández, Larry Gerace, John A. Hanover, Bertil Hille, Stuart L. Jacobson, W. Jonathan Lederer, Andrejs Liepins, Gilbert N. Ling, Michele Mazzanti, Ernst Niggli, Sanford M. Simon, Walter Stühmer, and W. Gil Wier. Special thanks are tendered to Drs. Dingwall, Gerace, Hanover and Liepins for their observations on nuclear electrophysiology within the context of cell/molecular biology. Thanks are also extended to Drs. Lederer and Wier for discussions on fluorescence microscopy of Ca²⁺ transients. Dr. Niggli provided the preprint of his paper, with P. Lipp, confirming previous observations that cardiomyocyte nuclei behave as a barrier to intracellular Ca²⁺ waves. Drs. DeFelice and Mazzanti provided a draft of their review on the biophysics of the nuclear envelope. This work is supported by the American Heart Association, Maryland Affiliate. Institutional support and facilities have come through Drs. C. William Balke, Michael R. Gold, W. Gil Wier and W. Jonathan Lederer, to whom the author is deeply grateful. This work is dedicated to my parents for introducing me to scientific curiosity and for their constant incentive and support. A special dedication to my father who recently passed away.     

Direct association of tristetraprolin with the nucleoporin CAN/Nup214

Tristetraprolin (TTP) is a widely expressed, zinc finger-containing protein that has been implicated in the regulation of TNFalpha production in mice. Stimulus-dependent cytoplasmic translocation of TTP has been demonstrated in several cells. In this report we used the yeast two-hybrid screen to identify proteins able to interact with full length, human TTP. One of the isolated TTP-interacting clones encoded the FG repeat region of the nuclear pore protein Nup214. Full length Nup214 co-precipitated with TTP from resting and LPS-stimulated THP-1 cells, indicating that this interaction occurred in intact cells. The ability of TTP to associate with Nup214 was dependent on two intact zinc fingers within TTP. In contrast to wild type TTP that localized primarily in the cytosol, a mutant unable to associate with Nup214 localized throughout the cell, suggesting that the interaction with Nup214 regulates TTP localization.     

Phosphomimetic mutation of the mitotically phosphorylated serine 1880 compromises the interaction of the transmembrane nucleoporin gp210 with the nuclear pore complex

The nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) reversibly disassemble and reassemble during mitosis. Disassembly of the NPC is accompanied by phosphorylation of many nucleoporins although the function of this is not clear. It was previously shown that in the transmembrane nucleoporin gp210 a single serine residue at position 1880 is specifically phosphorylated during mitosis. Using amino acid substitution combined with live cell imaging, time-lapse microscopy and FRAP, we investigated the role of serine 1880 in binding of gp210 to the NPC in vivo. An alanine substitution mutant (S1880A) was significantly more dynamic at the NPC compared to the wild-type protein, suggesting that serine 1880 is important for binding of gp210 to the NPC. Moreover a glutamate substitution (S1880E) closely mimicking phosphorylated serine specifically interfered with incorporation of gp210 into the NPC and compromised its post-mitotic recruitment to the nuclear envelope of daughter nuclei. Our findings are consistent with the idea that mitotic phosphorylation acts to dissociate gp210 from the structural elements of the NPC.     

Gene targeting methods for studying nuclear transport factors in mice

Genetically engineered mice have been widely used to study gene function in a variety of life-science disciplines. However, the use of animal models in the field of nucleocytoplasmic transport has been limited, mainly because disruption of individual transport factors is expected to deregulate basic biological processes so severely that the embryo dies at an early stage in development. Early studies in which transport factors were knocked out in mice have confirmed this notion. Recent work has shown that hypomorphic alleles are very useful for studying essential genes at the organismal level. In combination with wild-type and knockout alleles, hypomorphic alleles can be used to generate a series of mice in which the expression of a protein is gradually reduced from normal to zero. Within this series, there is often an allelic combination that yields liveborn mice that develop overt phenotypes as they age, and that can be used to study the physiological relevance of the protein. In this article, we present an efficient method for generating an allelic series of mice. It involves the use of a multi-purpose gene-targeting vector that produces a hypomorphic allele that can also be converted into conditional and knockout alleles within the mouse. This method saves time and provides flexibility in terms of choosing the most appropriate model for studying components of the nucleocytoplasmic machinery at the organismal level.     

Nucleoporins: leaving the nuclear pore complex for a successful mitosis

The nuclear envelope (NE) separates the cytoplasm and the cell nucleus of interphase eukaryotic cells and nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) mediate the macromolecular exchange between these two compartments. The NE and the NPCs of vertebrate cells disassemble during prophase and the nuclear pore proteins (nucleoporins) are distributed within the mitotic cytoplasm. For an increasing number of them active mitotic functions have been assigned over the past few years. Nucleoporins are participating in spindle assembly, kinetochore organisation, and the spindle assembly checkpoint, all processes that control chromosome segregation and are important for maintenance of genome integrity. But nucleoporins are also engaged in early and late mitotic events, such as centrosome positioning and cytokinesis. Here we will highlight recent progress in deciphering the roles for nucleoporins in the distinct steps of mitosis.     

Development of a Nuclear Export Signal Trapping Method for Isolating Genes with HIV Rev Activity

We have developed a method for nuclear export signal trapping (NEST) to isolate functional Rev clones from various types of libraries such as libraries of Rev mutants. The expression libraries are cotransfected into COS cells together with a novel Rev-dependent immunoselectable CD28 expression plasmid, pCMV128-CD28. CD28-positive cells are recovered by FACS or by immune precipitation with magnetic beads, and the low-molecular-weight extra chromosomal DNA is recovered, amplified for Rev-containing DNA by PCR and recloned into expression plasmids. The resulting clones are enriched for functional Rev clones. These can be recovered efficiently after several repetitive NEST cycles. This technique may be usefully applied to study various regions of Rev, such as the RNA binding domain and the nuclear export signal, or effector domain and potentially to the isolation of cellular factors with nuclear export capabilities.     

Nuclear transport kinetics in microarrays of nuclear envelope patches

Optical Single Transporter Recording (OSTR) is a technique for analyzing membrane transport kinetics at high sensitivity, selectivity, and spatial resolution. Cellular membranes are firmly attached to microarrays of small test compartments (TCs) with diameters between approximately 0.1 and 100 microm and depths between approximately 10 and 100 microm. This permits to generate either "small" membrane patches containing few transporters or "large" patches containing many transporters. Transport of substrates across membrane patches is recorded by confocal microscopy. The present article reviews recent applications of OSTR to the nuclear pore complex (NPC). The results show that the transport functions of the NPC, previously studied almost exclusively in intact and permeabilized cells, are conserved in isolated nuclei and can be fully reconstituted in purified nuclear envelopes by addition of recombinant transport factors. This opens new avenues to the analysis of nuclear transport including the export of nucleic-acid-protein and ribosomal particles.     

增强子RNA的研究进展

增强子是位于基因上游的DNA序列,能够增强下游基因的转录,但增强子自身也可转录出RNA却鲜为人知。最近通过一些关于全基因组的研究发现,增强子可以普遍地转录产生RNA,称之为enhancer RNAs(eRNAs)。eRNAs可以激活增强子活性,也能与其它蛋白质因子结合促进增强子启动子环的形成,从而激活下游基因的表达,它还可能以独立的形式发挥某些生物学功能。目前对eRNAs的研究并不是很深入,所以对eRNAs的深入研究将对其功能探索、eRNAs的开发应用,甚至是疾病的防治有重要的意义。本文旨在对eRNAs的结构、功能及作用机制作相关介绍。