The pore–transcription connection

The transcriptional state of a gene is connected to its association with the nuclear pore, according to Jason Casolari, Pamela Silver, and colleagues (Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA). Although the silencing of certain loci was known to rely on their localization to the nuclear periphery, where the pores lie, the new results suggest that yeast pores prefer transcriptionally active genes. “You get more bang for your buck if highly active genes are at the pore,” says Casolari, because it may expedite export of the transcripts.

The nuclear pore is, however, important for all sorts of genes—active and inactive, and the boundaries between them. The group shows that pore proteins are fond of both active and inactive genes with binding sites for the Rap1 transcription factor. Rap1 has boundary activity—it shields intervening sequences from...