Contrary to the nuclear localization signals (NLSs), nucleolar localization signals or sequences (NoLSs) are not well characterized. Although several NoLSs have been described, no obvious consensus sequence has emerged. Nevertheless all NoLSs reported for nucleolus localizing virus proteins, such as HIV-1 Rev (Kubota et al. 1989 ), HIV-1 Tat (Dang and Lee 1989) and human T-cell leukaemia virus type 1 Rex (HTLV-1 Rex) (Siomi et al. 1988) , and for cellular proteins such as the nucleolar protein p120 , Survivin-deltaEx3 (Song and Wu 2005) and HSP70 (Dang and Lee 1989) are rich in basic residues. The capacity of numerous proteins to adopt nucleolar localization has been correlated with interaction of these proteins with B23. Owing to the ability of numerous nucleolar proteins to interact with B23 and because this major nucleolar protein shuttles constantly between the nucleus and the cytoplasm (Borer et al. 1989) , it was frequently suggested that B23 might be a transporter for nucleolar proteins possessing a NoLS (Fankhauser et al. 1991; Li 1997; Valdez et al. 1994) . Even if this tempting hypothesis has never been demonstrated, recent results obtained using stable U2OS-derived cell lines with reduced B23 expression levels showed that the nucleolar localization of ARF is linked to B23 (Korgaonkar et al. 2005) . Indeed, reduced expression of B23 induced a partial delocalization of ARF from nucleoli to nucleoplasm. The authors therefore concluded that B23 targets ARF to nucleoli in a dose-dependent manner. Nevertheless, this result does not allow discriminating between a role for B23 in the transport of ARF from nucleoplasm to nucleoli and/or in the retention of ARF in nucleoli.