The Nucleus

Abstract

The nucleus is the largest of the cellular compartments, housing the chromosomes with the vast majority of the cellular genome and multiple molecular machineries necessary for gene organization and expression. In recent years, contemporarily with the successful sequencing of the entire human genome, knowledge of nuclear organization has also enormously increased and exciting results provide evidence that the long-standing dogma of a spatial separation of gene transcription in the nucleus and translation in the cytoplasm cannot be maintained. Advanced methodical approaches provide insight into the three-dimensional nuclear architectures and their dynamics and several nuclear structures have been proved to be multifunctional and, although morphologically stable, highly dynamic entities.