Molecular determinants of large cargo transport into the nucleus

Transport of molecules between the nucleus and the cytoplasm is tightly regulated by the nuclear pore complex (NPC). Even very large cargoes such as many pathogens, mRNAs and pre-ribosomal subunits can pass the NPC intact. Compared to small import complexes, for such large cargoes >15 nm there is very little quantitative understanding of the mechanism for efficient transport, the role of multivalent binding to nuclear transport receptors via nuclear localisation sequences (NLSs) and effects of size differences. Here, we assayed nuclear import kinetics in cells for a total of 30 large cargo models based on four capsid-like particles in the size range of 17-36 nm, with tuneable numbers of up to 240 NLSs. We show that the requirements for transport scale non-linearly with size and obey a minimal cut off of functional import requiring more than 10 NLS in the lowest case. Together, our results reveal the key molecular determinants on large cargo import kinetics in cells.