Retromer revisited: Evolving roles for retromer in endosomal sorting

Abstract

The highly conserved retromer complex has been linked to cargo retrieval from endosomes to the trans-Golgi network. In this issue, Kvainickas et al. (2017. J. Cell Biol. https ://doi .org /10 .1083 /jcb .201702137) and Simonetti et al. (2017. J. Cell Biol. https ://doi .org /10 .1083 /jcb .201703015) fundamentally question the current retromer model and demonstrate that in mammalian cells, the individual retromer subcomplexes have functionally diverged to organize multiple distinct sorting pathways.