COPI-coated vesicle

GO:0030137 · Membrane organelle · Membrane bounded organelle · Proposed

A vesicle with a coat formed of the COPI coat complex proteins. COPI-coated vesicles are found associated with Golgi membranes at steady state, are involved in Golgi to endoplasmic reticulum (retrograde) vesicle transport, and possibly also in intra-Golgi transport. [GO:0030137]

Has part: COPI vesicle coat (GO:0030126); COPI-coated vesicle membrane (GO:0030663)

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

Taxonomic distribution

NCBITaxon:4932 Saccharomyces cerevisiae — COMMON: Budding yeast has a COPI coatomer system that retrieves dilysine-tagged early secretory cargo to the endoplasmic reticulum. [DOI:10.1091/mbc.e02-11-0736]

Canonical examples

NCBITaxon:4932 Saccharomyces cerevisiae — Budding-yeast model in which coatomer mutants established COPI roles in Golgi-to-ER retrieval and early secretory trafficking. [DOI:10.1091/mbc.e02-11-0736]

Functions

retrograde vesicle-mediated transport, Golgi to endoplasmic reticulum GO:0006890 — COPI-coated vesicles act as coated transport carriers for retrograde traffic from the Golgi apparatus to the endoplasmic reticulum.
- GO:0006890 GO:0006890 denotes retrograde vesicle-mediated transport from the Golgi apparatus to the endoplasmic reticulum.
- GO:0030137 GO:0030137 identifies COPI-coated vesicles as carriers involved in Golgi-to-ER retrograde vesicle transport.
- DOI:10.1091/mbc.e02-11-0736 Sandmann et al. 2003 described COPI retrograde vesicles and direct binding of a KKXX ER-retrieval motif by coatomer in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Mechanism graphs

COPI-coated vesicle topology (FUNCTION)

The COPI vesicle coat and COPI-coated vesicle membrane are parts of the coated vesicles that bud from Golgi membranes for Golgi-to-ER retrograde transport.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
COPI vesicle coat	is part of	COPI-coated vesicle	`GO:0030137` GO:0030137 defines a COPI-coated vesicle by its COPI coat complex proteins.
COPI-coated vesicle membrane	is part of	COPI-coated vesicle	`GO:0030663` GO:0030663 defines the COPI-coated vesicle membrane as the surrounding lipid bilayer.
Golgi membrane	evaginates into	COPI-coated vesicle	`GO:0035964` GO:0035964 defines COPI-coated vesicle budding as evagination of a Golgi membrane to form a COPI-coated vesicle.
COPI-coated vesicle	participates in	retrograde vesicle-mediated transport, Golgi to endoplasmic reticulum	`GO:0006890` GO:0006890 denotes retrograde vesicle-mediated transport from Golgi apparatus to endoplasmic reticulum. `GO:0030137` GO:0030137 identifies COPI-coated vesicles as carriers involved in Golgi-to-ER retrograde transport.
COPI vesicle coat	participates in	COPI-coated vesicle budding	`GO:0035964` GO:0035964 defines COPI-coated vesicle budding as the process that yields a COPI-coated vesicle.

Discussions

INTERPRETATION (RESOLVED): Keep coatomer and Arf-family GTPases on the COPI vesicle coat record rather than duplicating them as direct COPI-coated vesicle components. The whole-vesicle record uses GO:0030126 for its COPI coat part, and the coat record already models coatomer and Arf as COPI coat constituents. Repeating those subunits here would flatten the coat-versus-vesicle partonomy.
INTERPRETATION (RESOLVED): Leave GO:0030137's related synonym 'coatomer' off this whole-vesicle record. In GO, coatomer is an exact synonym for GO:0030126 COPI vesicle coat and only a related synonym of GO:0030137 COPI-coated vesicle, so adding it here would make searches conflate the coat complex with the whole vesicle.

Evidence

GO:0030137 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for COPI-coated vesicles.
GO:0005798 Gene Ontology cellular-component parent term for Golgi-associated vesicles.
GO:0030135 Gene Ontology cellular-component parent term for coated vesicles.
GO:0030126 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the COPI vesicle coat that is part of COPI-coated vesicles.
GO:0030663 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the COPI-coated vesicle membrane.
GO:0035964 Gene Ontology biological-process term for COPI-coated vesicle budding.
GO:0006890 Gene Ontology biological-process term for retrograde vesicle-mediated transport from Golgi to ER.
GO:0000139 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the Golgi membrane from which COPI-coated vesicles bud.
GO:0005783 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the endoplasmic reticulum reached by Golgi-to-ER retrograde vesicle transport.
DOI:10.1038/349248a0 Waters, Serafini and Rothman 1991, 'Coatomer': a cytosolic protein complex containing subunits of non-clathrin-coated Golgi transport vesicles, Nature.
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.
DOI:10.1091/mbc.e02-11-0736 Sandmann et al. 2003, Suppression of Coatomer Mutants by a New Protein Family with COPI and COPII Binding Motifs in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Curation history

2026-09-14T15:45:22Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-14T15:46:45Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added Golgi-associated/coated-vesicle parentage, COPI coat and COPI-coated vesicle membrane parts, Saccharomyces scope, a Golgi-to-ER retrograde-transport function, GO/DOI evidence, a nonmechanistic vesicle-topology graph, and resolved coat-subunit and coatomer-synonym boundary discussions.
2026-09-21T11:01:21Z codex · REPLACED_UNREADABLE_EVIDENCE — Resolved #1235 by replacing unreadable Serafini and Letourneur COPI citations with reachable Yu et al. 2012 Arf1-coatomer and Sandmann et al. 2003 Golgi-to-ER retrieval evidence.

Source: data/structures/membrane_organelle/copi_coated_vesicle.yaml