Crossing paths: recent insights in the interplay between autophagy and intracellular trafficking in plants

Autophagy fulfills a crucial role in plant cellular homeostasis by recycling diverse cellular components ranging from protein complexes to whole organelles. Autophagy cargos are shuttled to the vacuole for degradation, thereby completing the recycling process. Canonical autophagy requires the lipidation and insertion of ATG8 proteins into double‐membrane structures, termed autophagosomes, which engulf the cargo to be degraded. As such, the autophagy pathway actively contributes to intracellular membrane trafficking. Yet, the autophagic process is not fully considered a bona fide component of the canonical membrane trafficking pathway. However, recent findings have started to pinpoint the interconnection between classical membrane trafficking pathways and autophagy. This review details the latest advances in our comprehension of the interplay between these two pathways. Understanding the overlap between autophagy and canonical membrane trafficking pathways is important to illuminate the inner workings of both pathways in plant cells. Endomembrane trafficking is a highly complex and dynamic system with many regulatory checkpoints. Recent discoveries have shown that autophagy regulates endomembrane trafficking in plants. Rather than being a unilateral process, endomembrane components appear to be important for autophagy to properly function. In this review, we summarize the interplay between autophagy and endomembrane trafficking, and pinpoint future paths of inquiry.