Activated STING1 rides the Rafeesome.

Over the past decade, accumulated studies have reported the presence of non-canonical macroautophagy/autophagy characterized by the shared usage of the autophagy machinery and distinct components that function in multiple scenarios but do not involve lysosomal degradation. One type of non-canonical autophagy is secretory autophagy, which facilitates the secretion of various cargoes. In a recent work from Gao et al. the ER-membrane protein STING1 has been identified as a novel substrate of secretory autophagy. The secretion of activated STING1 is mediated by its packing into the rafeesome, a newly identified organelle formed upon the fusion of RAB22A-mediated non-canonical autophagosome with an early endosome. Moreover, extracellular vesicles containing activated STING1 induce antitumor immunity in recipient cells, a process potentially promoted by RAB22A.