parasitophorous vacuole

cellstructuremech:parasitophorous_vacuole · Membrane organelle · Membrane bounded organelle · Proposed

A membrane-bounded host-cell vacuole in which an invading apicomplexan parasite resides and develops; its bounding parasitophorous vacuolar membrane is initiated during host-cell invasion and surrounds the intracellular parasite. [uniprot.location:SL-0194 — Parasitophorous vacuole]

Has part: parasitophorous vacuole membrane (cellstructuremech:parasitophorous_vacuole_membrane); parasitophorous vacuole lumen (cellstructuremech:parasitophorous_vacuole_lumen)

Xrefs: uniprot.location:SL-0194 — Parasitophorous vacuole

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

Taxonomic distribution

• NCBITaxon:5794 Apicomplexa — COMMON: UniProt describes the parasitophorous vacuole as the host-cell vacuole in which most apicomplexan parasites reside and develop. [uniprot.location:SL-0194 — Parasitophorous vacuole]

Canonical examples

• NCBITaxon:5811 Toxoplasma gondii — Apicomplexan parasite whose parasitophorous vacuole and parasite-modified PVM are reviewed as a model host-parasite interface. [DOI:10.1016/j.pt.2017.02.007]
• NCBITaxon:5833 Plasmodium falciparum — Human malaria parasite whose intraerythrocytic PV/PVM was used in a BioID survey of PVM-associated proteins. [DOI:10.1128/mSphere.00522-17]

Functions

• intracellular parasite replication niche — The parasitophorous vacuole surrounds the intracellular parasite and supplies the host-cell compartment in which apicomplexan parasites reside and develop.
  • uniprot.location:SL-0194 — Parasitophorous vacuole UniProt SL-0194 defines the parasitophorous vacuole as the host-cell vacuole where most apicomplexan parasites reside and develop.
  • DOI:10.1016/j.pt.2017.02.007 Clough and Frickel 2017 review the Toxoplasma PV as the interface between the parasite and its host.

Mechanism graphs

Parasitophorous vacuole topology (FUNCTION)

The parasitophorous vacuolar membrane is the lipid-bilayer boundary of the PV.

Discussions

• INTERPRETATION (RESOLVED): Model GO:0020003 as a broad parent rather than as the identity of the Apicomplexa-scoped parasitophorous vacuole. GO:0020003 names the symbiont-containing vacuole class and UniProt maps the narrower apicomplexan SL-0194 parasitophorous-vacuole location to it.
• CURATION_TODO (RESOLVED): Decide whether the parasitophorous vacuolar membrane needs its own exact record or exact source-neutral component grounding. UniProt SL-0193 names the PVM exactly even though its mapped GO term, GO:0020005, names the broader symbiont-containing vacuole membrane class.

Evidence

• uniprot.location:SL-0194 — Parasitophorous vacuole UniProt Subcellular Location entry SL-0194 identifies the parasitophorous vacuole and maps it to the broader GO:0020003 symbiont-containing vacuole class.
• GO:0020003 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for symbiont-containing vacuoles, the broader class that contains apicomplexan parasitophorous vacuoles.
• GO:0020005 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the broader symbiont-containing vacuole membrane class.
• uniprot.location:SL-0193 — Parasitophorous vacuole membrane UniProt Subcellular Location entry SL-0193 identifies the parasitophorous vacuolar membrane and maps it to GO:0020005.
• DOI:10.1242/jcs.111.11.1467 Lingelbach and Joiner 1998, The parasitophorous vacuole membrane surrounding Plasmodium and Toxoplasma: an unusual compartment in infected cells, Journal of Cell Science.
• DOI:10.1016/j.pt.2017.02.007 Clough and Frickel 2017, The Toxoplasma Parasitophorous Vacuole: An Evolving Host-Parasite Frontier, Trends in Parasitology.
• DOI:10.1128/mSphere.00522-17 Schnider et al. 2018, BioID Reveals Novel Proteins of the Plasmodium Parasitophorous Vacuole Membrane, mSphere.

Curation history

• 2026-09-13T18:06:58Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
• 2026-09-13T18:07:43Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added the UniProt SL xref, symbiont-containing-vacuole parentage, a PVM constituent, eukaryotic and Apicomplexa distribution, Toxoplasma and Plasmodium examples, PV niche function, DOI/GO/UniProt evidence, a nonmechanistic topology graph, and scope discussions for GO:0020003 and GO:0020005.
• 2026-09-13T18:19:06Z codex · ADDRESSED_REVIEW — Resolved #820, #821, and #822 by removing the inferred Eukaryota distribution row, deleting the ambiguous PV exact synonym, and dropping the organism-as-state node from the topology graph.
• 2026-09-13T18:53:40Z codex · ADDRESSED_CURATION_TODO — Resolved the PVM exact-grounding TODO by replacing the label-only PVM component with an exact has_part link and by grounding the PV topology node to cellstructuremech:parasitophorous_vacuole_membrane.

Source: data/structures/membrane_organelle/parasitophorous_vacuole.yaml