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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Sep 4.
Published in final edited form as: J Cell Sci. 2021 Mar 4;134(5):jcs252676. doi: 10.1242/jcs.252676

Figure 1. Main intracellular trafficking pathways.

Figure 1

Specialised regions of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) serve as a departure station for newly synthesised cargo that travel to the Golgi apparatus in COPII vesicles. At the Golgi, cargo proteins mature and leave from the trans-Golgi network towards the plasma membrane or endosomes. COPI vesicles help Golgi organisation by trafficking within the Golgi and from the Golgi to the ER. The protein composition at the plasma membrane is also regulated by the endocytic pathway. Clathrin-coated vesicles bring internalised cargoes to sorting endosomes where these cargoes are either sorted in recycling endosomes en route for the plasma membrane, or in late endosomes/multivesicular bodies (MVBs), going towards proteases-containing lysosomes for degradation. Secretory and endocytic pathways are highly interconnected, which is represented by a bidirectional arrow.