Ruptures of the nuclear envelope can drive a catastrophic loss of nucleocytoplasmic compartmentalization. In this issue, Halfmann et al. (2019. J. Cell Biol. https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201901116) describe a mechanism for surveilling the integrity of the nuclear barrier and coupling the sensing of nuclear ruptures to the recruitment of the nuclear envelope repair machinery.
© 2019 King and Lusk.