Close Encounter of the Third Kind: The ER Meets Endosomes at Fission Sites

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) forms functional contacts with several cellular organelles and regulates processes such as mitochondrial fission. In a recent issue of Cell, Rowland et al. (2014) extend these findings to endosomes, showing that the ER contacts endosomes at sites containing the WASH subunit FAM21, where it forecasts fission events.