A model of ATG9A roles in consecutive stages of the canonical autophagy pathway. (i–iv) Stages: initiation (i), expansion (ii a and ii b; alternative ATG9A trafficking pathways for its inclusion in or cycling to/from phagophores), and closure (iii), leading to the formation of double-membrane autophagosomes (iv). ATG2A-ATG9A model is a modified PDB file from van Vliet et al. (2022). IQGAP1 and CHMP2A, AlphaFold structures AF-Q9JKF1 and AF-O43633-F1.