Raote, IshierOrtega Bellido, MaríaSantos, António J. M.Foresti, OmbrettaZhang, ChongGarcía Parajó, María F.Campelo, FelixMalhotra, Vivek2018-04-092018-04-092018Raote I, Ortega-Bellido M, Santos AJM, Foresti O, Zhang C, Garcia-Parajo MF, Campelo F, Malhotra V. TANGO1 builds a machine for collagen export by recruiting and spatially organizing COPII, tethers and membranes. eLife. 2018;7:e32723. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.32723.2050-084Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/34322Collagen export from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) requires TANGO1, COPII coats, and retrograde fusion of ERGIC membranes. How do these components come together to produce a transport carrier commensurate with the bulky cargo collagen? TANGO1 is known to form a ring that corrals COPII coats, and we show here how this ring or fence is assembled. Our data reveal that a TANGO1 ring is organized by its radial interaction with COPII, and lateral interactions with cTAGE5, TANGO1-short or itself. Of particular interest is the finding that TANGO1 recruits ERGIC membranes for collagen export via the NRZ (NBAS/RINT1/ZW10) tether complex. Therefore, TANGO1 couples retrograde membrane flow to anterograde cargo transport. Without the NRZ complex, the TANGO1 ring does not assemble, suggesting its role in nucleating or stabilising this process. Thus, coordinated capture of COPII coats, cTAGE5, TANGO1-short, and tethers by TANGO1 assembles a collagen export machine at the ER.application/pdfeng© 2018 Raote et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32723Structural biology and molecular biophysicsCell biologyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess