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Cell biology

Taking a turn into the nucleus

Nature volume 442, pages 991–992 (2006)Cite this article

How soluble proteins get into the cell nucleus is known in great detail, but how membrane proteins make it into the inner nuclear membrane has long been an enigma. The two processes in fact turn out to be related.

Eukaryotic cells house their genome in a dedicated intracellular compartment — the cell nucleus. The boundary of this organelle is a double lipid bilayer termed the nuclear envelope, which consists of an outer nuclear membrane (ONM) that is continuous with the membrane system of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), and an inner nuclear membrane (INM) of a different protein composition. Proteins of the INM play a pivotal role in genome organization. They are initially inserted into the ER, but how do they get to their final destination in the INM? In this issue, Günter Blobel and colleagues (King et al., page 1003)1 address this long-standing question. They report a receptor-mediated transport mechanism by which transmembrane proteins are targeted to the INM in yeast.

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Figure 1: Receptor-mediated transport of proteins to the inner nuclear membrane (INM).

References

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  1. Institute of Biochemistry, ETH Zurich, Schafmattstrasse 18, Zurich, 8093, Switzerland

    Ulrike Kutay & Petra Mühlhäusser

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  1. Ulrike Kutay
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  2. Petra Mühlhäusser
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Kutay, U., Mühlhäusser, P. Taking a turn into the nucleus. Nature 442, 991–992 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05173

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