All You Need to Know about Nuclear Translocation Assays

What is Nuclear Translocation Assay?

Many cellular physiological processes, including cell division, cell differentiation, cell motility, immune response, neural transmission and apoptosis, are activated and regulated through Signal transduction pathways.

The activation of a signaling pathway usually results in the transport of an extracellular biological signal into a cell compartment (cytoplasm or nucleus), followed by a physiological response from the cell, E.g. activation of transcription factors which results in the expression of specific gene products. The translocation of molecules often generates the cell’s physiological response to a signal from one cellular compartment to another. These molecules include macromolecules, such as transcription factors, protein kinases, or smaller molecules (second messengers). To appropriately carry out critical cellular functions, cellular signal transduction pathways are highly complex and involve multiple regulatory mechanisms with significant crosstalk and redundancy. Such complex signaling pathways include the MAPK pathway, NFkB mediated pathway, PI3K mediated pathway and G protein pathway. These pathways have been indicated in many diseases, and understanding them has led to an immense interest in targeting them to treat certain conditions. 

The canonical regulation of transcription factors, such as c-fos, c-jun, NFkB and Kinases, such as MAP Kinase, is via the translocation of the transcription factor from the cytoplasm into the nucleus.

Transcription factor proteins enter the nucleus by being transported there through nuclear pores (often by a particular transport pathway).