Dr. Fabien Montel "Transport through the nuclear pore complex: two complementary approaches"

The nuclear pore complex is the unique gateway between the nucleus and the cytoplasm of the cells. It ensures both directional and selective transport of nucleic acids and proteins. Its detailed mechanism is still highly debated. We study its dynamic through two complementary approaches. In a bottom-up approach we use polymer grafted nanopores that mimic the crowding of the native pore. We show using a near field optics (ZMW) that we can use the critical pressure for cargo translocation to measure directly the free energy of translocation through the pore [1]. In a top-down approach we extract nuclear membranes from Xenopus Laevis. Our results obtained using ZMW and optical super-resolution (dSTORM) indicates that the nuclear pore has a plastic architecture. Its large scale organization and its internal structure are strongly influenced by transporters molecular crowding, developmental stage and transcriptional activity.

[1] Zero-mode waveguide detection of flow-driven DNA translocation through nanopores. Auger T, Mathé J, Viasnoff V, Charron G, Di Meglio JM, Auvray L, Montel F.  Phys Rev Lett. 2014 Jul 11;113(2):028302.
 

invited by Mordjane Boukhet