ICln is a multifunctional protein involved in regulatory mechanisms as different as membrane ion transport and RNA splicing. The protein is water-soluble, and during regulatory volume decrease after cell swelling, it is able to migrate from the cytosol to the cell membrane. Purified, water-soluble ICln is able to insert into lipid bilayers to form ion channels. Here ICln is a small (Ϸ25 kDa), multifunctional protein involved in regulatory mechanisms as different as cell volume regulation and RNA splicing (1, 2). Proteins involved in more than one regulatory mechanisms were recently defined as "connector hubs" (3) and play a pivotal role in cell function. Knock-out of such proteins is usually lethal. Accordingly, functional knockout of the ICln protein in mouse or nematode is lethal in the very early stages of development. No vital embryos can be obtained in either animal system (2, 4), which suggests a key role of ICln in cell homeostasis.ICln is water-soluble (1) and resides primarily in the cytosol (5), where it forms heteromultimeric complexes with (i) Sm proteins (6 -9), (ii) the arginine methyltransferase PRMT5 (6 -10), and (iii) cytoskeletal proteins such as -actin, erythrocyte protein 4.1, or the non-muscle isoform of the alkali myosin light chain (5, 11-13). A fraction of ICln is associated with the cell membrane, and interaction with the membrane protein integrin ␣ IIb  3 has recently been demonstrated (14).During a hypotonic challenge, ICln migrates from the cytosol toward the cell membrane, suggesting a role for ICln in cell volume regulation (15). This regulatory mechanism is further substantiated by the finding that heterologous expression of ICln in Xenopus laevis oocytes is followed by the appearance of ion currents (1) resembling those elicited by swelling of mammalian cells (2, 16). Furthermore, ICln-specific antibodies (5) or antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (17, 18) leading to a specific knock-down of the ICln protein impair regulatory volume decrease (RVD) 1 in native cells. Conversely, overexpression of ICln in mammalian cells increases RVD currents during a hypotonic challenge (2,19,20). In bacteria, overexpression of ICln leads to an improved tolerance to hypotonicity, an effect that can be reversed by the extracellular application of nucleotides (21,22). The extracellular effect of nucleotides was also shown for heterologous expression of ICln in oocytes, and the putative binding site for nucleotides was identified (1, 23). The above mentioned findings point toward a channel function of ICln (1). The successful reconstitution of purified ICln in artificial lipid bilayers demonstrated that ICln can indeed form ion conducting channels, the selectivity of which depends on the lipid composition of the membrane (23-26).Another well documented function of ICln is its role in splicing. In the cytosol, ICln forms two separate complexes with splicing factors. One complex (6S) contains ICln and the Sm * The work was supported by the Austrian Science Foundation (Grants P13041-med, P15578, and P1711...