Spatial organization of nuclear pores in Xaenopus laevis oocytes

The structure of nuclear pores has been the object of considerable investigation, but how nuclear pores are arranged on the nuclear surface is still less studied. Here, we analyze super-resolution images of the surface of Xenopus laevis oocytes nuclei during development and characterize the arrangement of nuclear pore using tools commonly used to study atomic structural and topological features of ordinary matter. To interpret the experimental results, we perform numerical simulations of octagonal clusters mimicking typical pore shapes and find structures that are in excellence agreement with experiments. The statistical features of the geometrical arrangement does not depend on the type of interaction between the pores, attractive or repulsive, but only on their octagonal geometry. We conclude that the observed arrangement of the pores is mainly is dominated by their octagonal symmetry. Author summaryThe cell nucleus encloses the genetic materials of eukaryotic cells. Communication between inside and outside of the nucleus occurs through the nuclear pore complexes whose structures are composed by more than 30 different proteins arranged in an octagonal shape. Here, we study the spatial organization of nuclear pore complexes on the nuclear surface as revealed by super-resolution microscopy and compare the results with simulations of a set of octagonal particles. Our results suggest that the octagonal structure of the pores plays a central role on the way they are organized on the surface.