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Review

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 4, 757–766 (1 October 2003) | doi:10.1038/nrm1230

The nuclear pore complex: nucleocytoplasmic transport and beyond

Birthe Fahrenkrog & Ueli Aebi

Over the past two years, it has become evident that there is an unexpected link between nuclear pore complex structure and dynamics, nucleocytoplasmic transport and chromosome segregation. In addition, a tomographic three-dimensional reconstruction of native nuclear pore complexes preserved in thick amorphous ice has unveiled a number of new structural features of this supramolecular machine. These data, together with some of the elementary physical principles that underlie nucleocytoplasmic transport, will be discussed in this review.