In situ architecture of the nuclear pore complex of the higher plant Arabidopsis thaliana

The nucleus is delimited by the nuclear envelope (NE), where nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) are embedded. While this complex has been well studied in vertebrates, yeast, and, more recently, in algae, in situ structural data of higher plants is still missing. Here, we show that many individual nucleoporins of Arabidopsis thaliana and human present high structural similarity. We report a first higher plant in situ NPC structure, derived from A. thaliana root protoplasts using cryo electron tomography, subtomogram averaging and homology-based integrative modeling. We present a plant NPC model based on predicted models of A. thaliana NUPs identified by mass spectrometry. The plant NPC scaffold exhibits differences in diameter and height to C. reinhardtii, while sharing some structural features with H. sapiens NPCs. Notably, we observed that the A. thaliana NPC contains NUP155 connectors like the H. sapiens NPC, which may explain the height difference when compared to the C. reinhardtii NPC.