Recycling Endosomes and Transcytosis

Macromolecules endocytosed from the plasma membrane follow three pathways to different fates. They can be degraded upon fusion with a lysosome, recycled back to the same domain of the plasma membrane, or transported to a different domain of the plasma membrane.

Molecules destined to be transported across the cell  to another plasma membrane domain are internalized  in vesicles that fuse with the recycling endosome.

The recycling endosome is a tubulated membrane network that acts as an intermediate structure to store and transport endocytosed molecules.

Transcytosis is one way to transport molecules across the plasma membrane through the recycling endosomes. This process has three distinct steps—endocytosis, vesicular transfer, and exocytosis.