Punching holes in the nucleus

Nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) are the gateways between the nucleus and the cytoplasm. How the individual components assemble into a functional pore is not understood. In a new study, published in Nature, Max Perutz Labs group leader Shotaro Otsuka and the lab of Jan Ellenberg (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, EMBL) provide the first step-by-step guide to NPC assembly. In the future, their approach could be applied to investigate the assembly mechanisms of other molecular machines in the cell.