The nuclear pore complex (NPC) plays imperative biological and biomedical roles as the sole gateway for molecular transport between the cytoplasm and nucleus of eukaryotic cells. The proteinous nanopore, however, can be blocked by arginine-containing polydipeptide repeats (DPRs) of proteins resulting from the disordered C9orf72 gene as a potential cause of serious neurological diseases. Herein, we report the new application of transient scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) to quantitatively characterize DPR–NPC interactions for the first time. Twenty repeats of neurotoxic glycine–arginine and proline–arginine in the NPC are quantified to match the number of phenylalanine–glycine (FG) units in hydrophobic transport barriers of the nanopore. The 1:1 stoichiometry supports the hypothesis that the guanidinium residue of a DPR molecule engages in cation–π interactions with the aromatic residue of an FG unit. Cation–π interactions, however, are too weak to account for the measured free energy of DPR transfer from water into the NPC. The DPR transfer is thermodynamically as favorable as the transfer of nuclear transport receptors, which is attributed to hydrophobic interactions as hypothesized generally for NPC-mediated macromolecular transport. Kinetically, the DPRs are trapped by FG units for much longer than the physiological receptors, thereby blocking the nanopore. Significantly, the novel mechanism of toxicity implies that the efficient and safe nuclear import of genetic therapeutics requires strong association with and fast dissociation from the NPC. Moreover, this work demonstrates the unexplored power of transient SECM to determine the thermodynamics and kinetics of biological membrane–molecule interactions.

This article is Open Access

Please wait while we load your content... Something went wrong. Try again?