The transcription factor ATF6 is held as a membrane precursor in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), and is transported and proteolytically processed in the Golgi apparatus under conditions of unfolded protein response stress. We show that during stress, ATF6 forms an interaction with COPII, the protein complex required for vesicular traffic of cargo proteins from the ER. Using an in vitro budding reaction that recapitulates the ER-stress induced transport of ATF6, we show that no cytoplasmic proteins other than COPII are necessary for transport. ATF6 is retained in the ER by association with the chaperone BiP (GRP78). In the in vitro reaction, the ATF6-BiP complex disassembles when membranes are treated with reducing agent and ATP. A hybrid protein with the ATF6 cytoplasmic domain replaced by a constitutive sorting signal (Sec22b SNARE) retains stress-responsive transport in vivo and in vitro. These results suggest that unfolded proteins or an ER luminal ؊SH reactive bond controls BiP-ATF6 stability and access of ATF6 to the COPII budding machinery.regulated transport ͉ unfolded protein response ͉ BiP ͉ prebudding complex E ndoplasmic reticulum (ER) homeostasis can be perturbed by up-regulation of secretory proteins or by disruption of protein processing, a condition termed ER stress (1). ER stress causes increased protein misfolding and leads to activation of the unfolded protein response (UPR), an evolutionarily conserved pathway to alleviate ER stress (2). The UPR leads to a slowdown in protein synthesis, an upregulation of ER chaperones, and an upregulation of ER-associated protein degradation.The three effector proteins for the UPR are IRE1, PERK, and ATF6. During the UPR, IRE and PERK remain in the ER and act via cytoplasmic effectors, whereas ATF6 is transported to the Golgi complex. In the Golgi, ATF6 is cleaved by Site-1 and Site-2 proteases (3). These cleavages release the N-terminal cytoplasmic domain, which contains a bZIP motif that binds DNA at ER stress response elements that control expression of the ER chaperones BiP (GRP78) and GRP94 (4).Transport of ATF6 and other cargo proteins likely involves the COPII coat, a complex of five cytoplasmic proteins that selects cargo at the ER membrane and pinches off membranes to form vesicles. The five proteins are the GTPase Sar1, which is recruited to the ER membrane and initiates coat formation by GDP to GTP exchange; the heterodimeric complex Sec23/Sec24, which binds to Sar1⅐GTP; and a second dimeric complex, Sec13/Sec31, which binds to Sec23/24 and provides the curvature necessary for vesicle fission (5). Cargo is selected by interactions between domains on the Sec24 subunit and cytoplasmic motifs on cargo proteins (6). Inhibition of COPII by overexpression of dominant negative Sar1 has been shown to block transport of ATF6 (7).A central question in ATF6 function is how luminal stress is converted into recognition by the cytoplasmic COPII complex. The luminal chaperone BiP binds ATF6 stably in unstressed cells and dissociates specifically during stress (8)...