multivesicular body

GO:0005771 · Membrane organelle · Membrane bounded organelle · Proposed

A type of endosome in which regions of the limiting endosomal membrane invaginate to form internal vesicles; membrane proteins that enter the internal vesicles are sequestered from the cytoplasm. [GO:0005771]

Synonyms: MVB; endosomal carrier vesicle; ECV; corpuscula multivesicularis; multivesicular bodies

Has part: multivesicular body membrane (GO:0032585); multivesicular body lumen (cellstructuremech:multivesicular_body_lumen); multivesicular body intraluminal vesicle (cellstructuremech:multivesicular_body_intraluminal_vesicle)

Xrefs: uniprot.location:SL-0174 — Multivesicular body

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

Taxonomic distribution

NCBITaxon:4932 Saccharomyces cerevisiae — COMMON: Budding yeast forms multivesicular bodies when ESCRT machinery sorts ubiquitinated endosomal membrane cargo into intraluminal vesicles destined for vacuolar delivery. [PMID:11511343]

Canonical examples

NCBITaxon:4932 Saccharomyces cerevisiae — Genetic and cell-biological model for ESCRT-dependent sorting of ubiquitinated membrane proteins into yeast multivesicular bodies. [PMID:11511343]

Functions

multivesicular body sorting pathway GO:0071985 — Multivesicular bodies receive ubiquitinated transmembrane cargo into luminal vesicles through ESCRT-dependent endosomal sorting.
- GO:0071985 GO:0071985 denotes the multivesicular body sorting pathway that targets ubiquitylated transmembrane proteins into luminal vesicles.
- PMID:11511343 Katzmann, Babst and Emr 2001 identified ESCRT-I as a conserved yeast endosomal protein-sorting complex needed for MVB cargo sorting.
vacuolar cargo delivery — Yeast multivesicular bodies deliver endosomal membrane cargo into the vacuole lumen for degradation.
- DOI:10.1016/j.devcel.2011.05.015 Henne, Buchkovich and Emr 2011 reviewed MVB formation as the ESCRT-dependent route that packages endosomal cargo for lysosomal or vacuolar degradation.

Mechanism graphs

ESCRT machinery forms intraluminal vesicles in yeast MVBs (ASSEMBLY)

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, ESCRT complexes sort ubiquitinated endosomal membrane cargo and remodel the multivesicular-body membrane to generate intraluminal vesicles.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
ESCRT I complex	sorts	ubiquitinated membrane cargo	`PMID:11511343` Katzmann, Babst and Emr 2001 showed ESCRT-I is needed for ubiquitin-dependent MVB cargo sorting.
ESCRT II complex	recruits	ESCRT III complex	`DOI:10.1016/j.devcel.2004.09.003` Teo et al. 2004 described ESCRT-II as part of the sequentially recruited endosomal ESCRT machinery and mapped direct ESCRT-II binding to the Vps20 subunit of ESCRT-III.
ESCRT III complex	remodels	multivesicular body membrane	`PMID:12194857` Babst et al. 2002 characterized yeast ESCRT-III as an endosome-associated complex required for MVB sorting. `DOI:10.1016/j.devcel.2011.05.015` Henne, Buchkovich and Emr 2011 reviewed ESCRT-III as the membrane-remodeling complex in the endosomal ESCRT pathway.
multivesicular body membrane	buds inward to form	multivesicular body intraluminal vesicle	`GO:0005771` GO:0005771 defines multivesicular bodies as endosomes with internal vesicles formed by invagination of the limiting endosomal membrane.
multivesicular body intraluminal vesicle	is contained in	multivesicular body	`GO:0005771` GO:0005771 defines the multivesicular body by the presence of internal vesicles.

Discussions

CURATION_TODO (RESOLVED): Resolve an exact source-neutral grounding or dedicated record boundary for multivesicular-body intraluminal vesicles. GO:0005771 defines the whole multivesicular body by internal vesicles, but this pass did not curate an exact CURIE for the intraluminal vesicle substructure.
CURATION_TODO (RESOLVED): Keep ESCRT-I, ESCRT-II, ESCRT-III, Vps4 and cargo-recognition machinery out of the multivesicular body component list. The ESCRT machinery sorts cargo and remodels endosomal membrane during MVB formation, so these complexes are modeled as assembly graph actors rather than stable constituents of the assembled multivesicular body.

Evidence

GO:0005771 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the multivesicular body.
GO:0005770 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the broader late endosome class.
GO:0032585 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the multivesicular body membrane.
GO:0071985 Gene Ontology biological-process term for the multivesicular body sorting pathway.
uniprot.location:SL-0174 — Multivesicular body UniProt Subcellular Location entry SL-0174 maps to GO:0005771 and lists multivesicular body under endosome.
uniprot.location:SL-0175 — Multivesicular body membrane UniProt Subcellular Location entry SL-0175 maps the multivesicular body membrane to GO:0032585.
uniprot.location:SL-0340 — Multivesicular body lumen UniProt Subcellular Location entry SL-0340 identifies the multivesicular body lumen and places it under multivesicular body.
PMID:11511343 Katzmann, Babst and Emr 2001, Ubiquitin-Dependent Sorting into the Multivesicular Body Pathway Requires the Function of a Conserved Endosomal Protein Sorting Complex, ESCRT-I, Cell.
DOI:10.1016/j.devcel.2004.09.003 Teo et al. 2004 described ESCRT-II as part of the sequentially recruited endosomal ESCRT machinery and mapped direct ESCRT-II binding to the Vps20 subunit of ESCRT-III.
PMID:12194857 Babst, Katzmann, Estepa-Sabal, Meerloo and Emr 2002, Escrt-III, Developmental Cell.
DOI:10.1016/j.devcel.2011.05.015 Henne, Buchkovich and Emr 2011, The ESCRT Pathway, Developmental Cell.

Curation history

2026-09-15T02:11:30Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-15T02:12:47Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added late-endosome parentage, UniProt SL-0174 synonymy, an MVB membrane component, GO/UniProt/DOI evidence, Saccharomyces scope, MVB sorting and vacuolar cargo-delivery functions, a nonmechanistic ESCRT intraluminal-vesicle formation graph, and MVB substructure and ESCRT component-boundary discussions.
2026-09-15T02:54:23Z codex · REVIEW_FIX — Addressed issue #921 by removing the duplicate GO:0032585 multivesicular body membrane component from the parent GO:0005771 record and dropping the stale MVB graph component_ref now that GO:0032585 has a standalone record.
2026-09-15T03:00:31Z codex · REVIEW_FIX — Completed issue #921 by removing the stale components#multivesicular_body_membrane discussion anchor after removing the duplicate GO:0032585 component from the parent multivesicular body record.
2026-09-15T03:25:07Z codex · REVIEW_FIX — Addressed issue #923 by adding the standalone cellstructuremech:multivesicular_body_lumen record to the parent GO:0005771 has_part list and adding UniProt SL-0340 evidence.
2026-09-21T08:16:18Z codex · REPLACED_UNREADABLE_EVIDENCE — Resolved #1222 by replacing unreadable Babst et al. 2002 ESCRT-II evidence with reachable Teo et al. 2004 support for the ESCRT-II to ESCRT-III handoff in the yeast MVB sorting pathway.
2026-09-21T08:41:49Z codex · REPLACED_UNREADABLE_EVIDENCE — Resolved #1224 by routing Katzmann, Babst and Emr 2001 ESCRT-I evidence through reachable PMID:11511343 instead of the unreadable Cell DOI.
2026-09-21T09:03:20Z codex · REPLACED_UNREADABLE_EVIDENCE — Resolved #1225 by routing Babst et al. 2002 ESCRT-III evidence through reachable PMID:12194857 instead of the unreadable Developmental Cell DOI.
2026-09-23T08:14:15Z codex · LINKED_INTRALUMINAL_VESICLE_RECORD — Added cellstructuremech:multivesicular_body_intraluminal_vesicle to has_part, grounded the intraluminal-vesicle graph node to the new record, and resolved the intraluminal-vesicle grounding TODO.

Source: data/structures/membrane_organelle/multivesicular_body.yaml