ER – the key to the highway

•Conserved and divergent features of the plant ER proteins involved in shaping ER membranes.•ER entertains not only functional but also physical interactions with other organelles.•New role of the ER as a propulsive force for the movement of other organelles independently from the cytoskeleton.

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the key organelle at the start of the secretory pathway and the list of its functions is continually growing. The ER organization as a tubular/cisternal network at the cortex of plant cells has recently been shown to be governed by the membrane tubulation proteins of the reticulon family working alongside plant atlastin homologues, members of the RHD3 group of proteins. Such a network has intimate connections with other organelles such as peroxisomes via peroxules, chloroplasts, Golgi bodies and at the cell cortex to the plasma membrane with cytoskeleton at so called ‘anchor/contact sites’. The ER network is by no means static displaying a range of different movements and acting as a subcellular highway supports the motility of organelles such as peroxisomes, mitochondria and Golgi bodies plus the transport of macromolecules such as viral movement proteins, nucleocapsid proteins and RNA. Here we highlight recent and exciting discoveries on the maintenance of the ER structure and its role on movement and biology of other organelles.