{"doi":"10.1101/2021.04.06.438517","title":"Tubular ERGIC (t-ERGIC): a SURF4-mediated expressway for ER-to-Golgi transport","abstract":"ABSTRACT The endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-to-Golgi transport is critical to protein secretion and intracellular sorting. Cargo carriers mediating the ER-to-Golgi transport are morphologically diverse, but it remains unclear whether this diversity arises from different cargo receptors, or whether it could lead to differential transport kinetics. Here we report a tubular ER-Golgi intermediate compartment (t-ERGIC) that is induced by the cargo receptor SURF4 and selectively expedites the ER-to-Golgi transport of SURF4 cargoes. Lacking the canonical ERGIC marker ERGIC-53 yet positive for the small GTPase Rab1, the t-ERGIC is further distinct from the stereotypical vesiculo-tubular cluster (VTC) ERGIC by its extremely elongated shape (~10 μm long with <30 nm diameter). With its exceptional surface-to-volume ratio and en bloc cargo packaging, high (~2 μm/s) intracellular traveling speeds, and ER-Golgi recycling capability, the t-ERGIC provides an efficient means for trafficking SURF4-bound cargoes. The biogenesis and cargo selectivity of t-ERGIC both depend on SURF4, which recognizes the N-terminus of soluble cargoes and co-clusters with the selected cargoes to expand the ER exit site. At the steady state, the t-ERGIC-mediated fast ER-to-Golgi transport is antagonized by retrograde transport based on the cargo C-terminal ER retrieval signal: we thus demonstrate the fine-tuning of protein trafficking and localization via its primary structure. Together, our results argue that specific cargo-receptor interactions give rise to distinct transport carriers, which in turn regulate the ER-to-Golgi trafficking kinetics.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":215844,"datarank":0.26876392038420827,"base_score":1.791759469228055,"endowment":1.791759469228055,"self_citation_contribution":0.26876392038420827,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.26876392038420827,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9528,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":583510,"name":"Kun Chen","orcid":"0000-0001-6139-3627","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":218681,"name":"Ke Xu","orcid":"0000-0002-2788-194X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":552200,"name":"Rui Yan","orcid":"0000-0003-3391-133X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":61,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:53:00.192353Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}