coated vesicle

GO:0030135 · Membrane organelle · Membrane bounded organelle · Proposed

Small membrane-bounded organelle formed by pinching off of a coated region of membrane. Some coats are made of clathrin, whereas others are made from other proteins. [GO:0030135]

Has part: vesicle coat (GO:0030120); coated vesicle membrane (GO:0030662)

UniProt location names: UniProt Consortium, CC BY 4.0. Reference label and route sources.

Components

Component	Type	Part of / acts on	Grounding	Genes	Stoichiometry	Essential	Role
coated vesicle coat proteins	Protein	part of	Reviewed label only (reviewed name; no accession asserted)			UNKNOWN	Protein constituents that assemble into the clathrin, COPI, or COPII coat on a transport-vesicle membrane. `GO:0030135` GO:0030135 defines coated vesicles as membrane-bounded organelles that bud from a coated region of membrane. `GO:0030120` GO:0030120 denotes the vesicle coat found on coated vesicles. `GO:0030125` GO:0030125 identifies the clathrin vesicle-coat child. `GO:0030126` GO:0030126 identifies the COPI vesicle-coat child. `GO:0030127` GO:0030127 identifies the COPII vesicle-coat child.
coated vesicle membrane lipid bilayer	Lipid	part of	Reviewed label only (reviewed name; no accession asserted)			ESSENTIAL	Lipid-bilayer constituent of the coated vesicle membrane that surrounds a coated vesicle. `GO:0030662` GO:0030662 defines the coated vesicle membrane as the lipid bilayer surrounding a coated vesicle. `GO:0030665` GO:0030665 identifies the clathrin-coated vesicle membrane child of the coated vesicle membrane. `GO:0030663` GO:0030663 identifies the COPI-coated vesicle membrane child of the coated vesicle membrane. `GO:0012507` GO:0012507 identifies the ER-to-Golgi transport vesicle membrane carried by COPII-coated ER-to-Golgi transport vesicles.

Taxonomic distribution

NCBITaxon:4932 Saccharomyces cerevisiae — COMMON: Budding yeast forms COPII-coated ER-to-Golgi transport vesicles from endoplasmic-reticulum membranes using Sar1p, Sec23p, Sec24p, Sec13p, and Sec31p coat machinery. [PMID:8004676]

Canonical examples

NCBITaxon:4932 Saccharomyces cerevisiae — Budding-yeast COPII reconstitution model in which Sar1p and Sec subcomplexes form a coated vesicle from endoplasmic-reticulum membranes. [PMID:9568718]

Functions

vesicle-mediated transport GO:0016192 — Coated vesicles are transport carriers whose coats and membranes package cargo during vesicle budding and vesicle-mediated transport.
- GO:0016192 GO:0016192 defines vesicle-mediated transport as membrane-bounded vesicle transport that includes vesicle budding and coating.
- GO:0030135 GO:0030135 defines a coated vesicle as a small membrane-bounded organelle pinched off from a coated region of membrane.

Mechanism graphs

Coated-vesicle topology (FUNCTION)

A protein coat and lipid-bilayer membrane form a coated vesicle that pinches off from a coated donor-membrane region during vesicle-mediated transport.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
coated vesicle coat proteins	assemble into	vesicle coat	`GO:0030125` GO:0030125 identifies the clathrin vesicle-coat child. `GO:0030126` GO:0030126 identifies the COPI vesicle-coat child. `GO:0030127` GO:0030127 identifies the COPII vesicle-coat child.
vesicle coat	is part of	coated vesicle	`GO:0030120` GO:0030120 defines a vesicle coat as found on a coated vesicle.
coated vesicle membrane	is part of	coated vesicle	`GO:0030662` GO:0030662 defines the coated vesicle membrane as the lipid bilayer surrounding a coated vesicle. `GO:0030665` GO:0030665 identifies the clathrin-coated vesicle membrane child of the coated vesicle membrane. `GO:0030663` GO:0030663 identifies the COPI-coated vesicle membrane child of the coated vesicle membrane. `GO:0012507` GO:0012507 identifies the ER-to-Golgi transport vesicle membrane carried by COPII-coated ER-to-Golgi transport vesicles.
coated membrane region	pinches off into	coated vesicle	`GO:0030135` GO:0030135 defines a coated vesicle as formed by pinching off of a coated region of membrane. `GO:0016192` GO:0016192 defines vesicle-mediated transport as a process that includes vesicle budding and coating.
coated vesicle	participates in	vesicle-mediated transport	`GO:0016192` GO:0016192 describes membrane-bounded vesicle transport as including vesicle budding and coating.

Discussions

CURATION_TODO (OPEN): Resolve clathrin, COPI, and COPII coat-subunit families on subtype coat records rather than flattening them onto the broad coated-vesicle parent. The GO coated-vesicle parent spans vesicles whose coats are made from different scaffold proteins and subtype-specific adaptors. This record keeps the parent coarse and leaves exact subtype composition to the GO:0030125, GO:0030126, and GO:0030127 vesicle-coat records.
CURATION_TODO (OPEN): Resolve an exact source-neutral grounding for coated-vesicle membrane lipids. The record is exactly grounded to GO:0030135 and has_part GO:0030662, but the generic lipid-bilayer constituent is intentionally left reviewed-label-only until an exact lipid or membrane-constituent CURIE is curated.

Evidence

GO:0030135 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for coated vesicles.
GO:0031410 Gene Ontology cellular-component parent term for cytoplasmic vesicles.
GO:0030120 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the vesicle coat.
GO:0030662 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the coated vesicle membrane.
GO:0030665 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for clathrin-coated vesicle membranes.
GO:0030663 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for COPI-coated vesicle membranes.
GO:0012507 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for ER-to-Golgi transport vesicle membranes.
GO:0030136 Gene Ontology cellular-component child term for clathrin-coated vesicles.
GO:0030137 Gene Ontology cellular-component child term for COPI-coated vesicles.
GO:0030134 Gene Ontology cellular-component child term for COPII-coated ER-to-Golgi transport vesicles.
GO:0016192 Gene Ontology biological-process term for vesicle-mediated transport.
DOI:10.1016/j.devcel.2005.04.014 Newpher et al. 2005, In Vivo Dynamics of Clathrin and Its Adaptor-Dependent Recruitment to the Actin-Based Endocytic Machinery in Yeast, Developmental Cell.
DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2012.01.015 Yu et al. 2012, A Structure-Based Mechanism for Arf1-Dependent Recruitment of Coatomer to Membranes, Cell.
PMID:8004676 Barlowe et al. 1994, COPII: A membrane coat formed by Sec proteins that drive vesicle budding from the endoplasmic reticulum, Cell.
PMID:9568718 Matsuoka et al. 1998, COPII-Coated Vesicle Formation Reconstituted with Purified Coat Proteins and Chemically Defined Liposomes, Cell.

Curation history

2026-09-16T03:10:42Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-16T03:11:39Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added cytoplasmic-vesicle parentage, vesicle-coat and coated-vesicle-membrane parts, broad reviewed-label-only coat-protein and lipid-bilayer components, Saccharomyces scope, a vesicle-mediated transport function, GO/DOI evidence, a nonmechanistic coated-vesicle topology graph, and component-boundary TODOs.
2026-09-16T03:22:18Z codex · ADDRESSED_PR_REVIEW — Resolved PR #1056 review issues #1057 and #1058 by replacing the broad evagination edge with direction-neutral coated-region pinching-off wording and by adding clathrin, COPI, and ER-to-Golgi coated-vesicle membrane GO evidence.
2026-09-16T03:22:53Z codex · NORMALIZED_REVIEW_FIX_YAML — Copied coated-vesicle membrane evidence entries inside the topology graph so the review fix emits anchor-free YAML.
2026-09-21T09:25:14Z codex · REPLACED_UNREADABLE_EVIDENCE — Resolved #1229 by routing Barlowe et al. 1994 COPII evidence through reachable PMID:8004676 instead of the unreadable Cell DOI.
2026-09-21T11:01:21Z codex · REPLACED_UNREADABLE_EVIDENCE — Resolved #1235 by replacing the broad parent COPI ARF citation with reachable Yu et al. 2012 evidence for Arf1-dependent coatomer recruitment.
2026-09-21T11:34:06Z codex · REPLACED_UNREADABLE_EVIDENCE — Resolved #1237 by routing Matsuoka et al. 1998 COPII liposome evidence through reachable PMID:9568718 instead of the unreadable Cell DOI.

Source: data/structures/membrane_organelle/coated_vesicle.yaml