The transport of macromolecules across the nuclear envelope is an essential eukaryotic process that enables proteins such as transcription factors, polymerases and histones to gain access to the genetic material contained within the nucleus. Importin-beta plays a central role in the nucleocytoplasmic transport process, mediating nuclear import through a range of interactions with cytoplasmic, n...

The GTPase Ran has recently been shown to stimulate microtubule polymerization in mitotic extracts, but its mode of action is not understood. Here we show that the mitotic role of Ran is largely mediated by the nuclear transport factor importin beta. Importin beta inhibits spindle formation in vitro and in vivo and sequesters an aster promoting activity (APA) that consists of multiple, independ...

Centrosome-independent microtubule polymerization around chromosomes has been shown to require a local gradient of RanGTP, which discharges mitotic cargoes from the nuclear import receptor importin beta. Here, we have used an activity-based assay in Xenopus egg extracts to purify the mRNA export protein Rae1 as a spindle assembly factor regulated by this pathway. Rae1 is a microtubule-associate...

Protein-protein interactions are difficult therapeutic targets, and inhibiting pathologically relevant interactions without disrupting other essential ones presents an additional challenge. Herein we report how this might be achieved for the potential anticancer target, the TPX2-importin-α interaction. Importin-α is a nuclear transport protein that regulates the spindle assembly protein TPX2. I...

How can cells sense their own size to coordinate biosynthesis and metabolism with their growth needs? We recently proposed a motor-dependent bidirectional transport mechanism for axon length and cell size sensing, but the nature of the motor-transported size signals remained elusive. Here, we show that motor-dependent mRNA localization regulates neuronal growth and cycling cell size. We found t...

In this issue, Chen et al. (2017. J. Cell Biol. https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201604025) show that Importin-11 traffics the tumor suppressor PTEN into the nucleus and in so doing protects it from cytoplasmic proteins that cause PTEN degradation. This work helps explain the nuclear accumulation of PTEN observed in many healthy tissues and, because Ipo11 mutant mice develop lung tumors, also implic...

Axoplasmic proteins containing nuclear localization signals (NLS) signal retrogradely by an unknown mechanism in injured nerve. Here we demonstrate that the importin/karyopherin alpha and beta families underlie this process. We show that importins are found in axons at significant distances from the cell body and that importin beta protein is increased after nerve lesion by local translation of...

Regulated nuclear translocation of the PER/CRY repressor complex is critical for negative feedback regulation of the circadian clock of mammals. However, the precise molecular mechanism is not fully understood. Here, we report that KPNB1, an importin β component of the ncRNA repressor of nuclear factor of activated T cells (NRON) ribonucleoprotein complex, mediates nuclear translocation and rep...

The size of the nucleus varies among different cell types, species, and disease states, but mechanisms of nuclear size regulation are poorly understood. We investigated nuclear scaling in the pseudotetraploid frog Xenopus laevis and its smaller diploid relative Xenopus tropicalis, which contains smaller cells and nuclei. Nuclear scaling was recapitulated in vitro using egg extracts, demonstrati...

Cellular stresses significantly affect nuclear transport systems. Nuclear transport pathways mediated by importin β-family members, which are active under normal conditions, are downregulated. During thermal stress, a nuclear import pathway mediated by a novel carrier, which we named Hikeshi, becomes active. Hikeshi is not a member of the importin β family and mediates the nuclear import of Hsp...