The Multiple Faces of Disordered Nucleoporins.

An evolutionary advantage of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) is their ability to bind a variety of folded proteins-a paradigm that is central to the nucleocytoplasmic transport mechanism, in which nuclear transport receptors mediate the translocation of various cargo through the nuclear pore complex by binding disordered phenylalanine-glycine-rich nucleoporins (FG-Nups). FG-Nups are highly dynamic, which poses a substantial problem when trying to determine precisely their function using common experimental approaches. FG-Nups have been studied under a variety of conditions, ranging from those that constitute single-molecule measurements to physiological concentrations at which they can form supramolecular structures. In this review, I describe the physicochemical properties of FG-Nups and compare them to those of other disordered systems, including well-studied IDPs. From this comparison, it is apparent that FG-Nups not only share some properties with IDPs in general but also possess unique characteristics that might be key to their central role in the nucleocytoplasmic transport machinery.