vesicle coat

GO:0030120 · Other · Multiprotein complex · Proposed

A membrane coat found on a coated vesicle. [GO:0030120]

Part of: 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
vesicle coat scaffold subunits	Protein	part of	Reviewed label only (reviewed name; no accession asserted)			UNKNOWN	Protein subunits or coat subcomplexes that build the protein scaffold on a coated-vesicle membrane. `GO:0030120` GO:0030120 defines a vesicle coat as a membrane coat found on a coated vesicle. `GO:0030125` GO:0030125 places clathrin vesicle coats under the vesicle coat parent. `GO:0030126` GO:0030126 places COPI vesicle coats under the vesicle coat parent. `GO:0030127` GO:0030127 places COPII vesicle coats under the vesicle coat parent and names the budding-yeast COPII coat subunits.
vesicle coat recruitment and cargo-selection factors	Protein	part of	Reviewed label only (reviewed name; no accession asserted)			UNKNOWN	Subtype-specific adaptor proteins, adaptor complexes, and small GTPases that recruit or connect vesicle-coat scaffolds to donor membranes and cargo during coat assembly. `GO:0030119` GO:0030119 places AP-type membrane coat adaptor complexes as part of the broader membrane coat. `DOI:10.1016/j.devcel.2005.04.014` Newpher et al. 2005 measured adaptor-dependent clathrin recruitment in yeast endocytosis. `DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2012.01.015` Yu et al. 2012 showed that Arf1-GTP binds two coatomer subcomplexes during COPI coatomer recruitment to membranes. `PMID:8004676` Barlowe et al. 1994 identified Sar1p, Sec23p, Sec24p, Sec13p, and Sec31p as COPII Sec proteins that drive ER vesicle budding.

Taxonomic distribution

NCBITaxon:4932 Saccharomyces cerevisiae — COMMON: Budding yeast has experimentally characterized COPII coats that assemble from Sar1p, Sec23p, Sec24p, Sec13p, and Sec31p during ER transport-vesicle budding. [PMID:8004676]

Canonical examples

NCBITaxon:4932 Saccharomyces cerevisiae — Budding yeast is an archetypal COPII vesicle-coat model in which Sar1p, Sec13p, Sec31p, Sec23p, and Sec24p were identified as Sec proteins that drive ER transport-vesicle budding. [PMID:8004676]

Functions

vesicle coating GO:0006901 — Vesicle coats form when coat proteins assemble on donor membranes during coated-transport-vesicle formation.
- GO:0006901 GO:0006901 denotes the addition of coat proteins to a membrane during transport-vesicle formation.
- GO:0035964 GO:0035964 defines COPI-coated vesicle budding as evagination of a Golgi membrane to form a COPI-coated vesicle.
- GO:0090114 GO:0090114 defines COPII-coated vesicle budding as evagination of an ER membrane to form a COPII-coated vesicle.
- GO:0072583 GO:0072583 denotes clathrin-dependent endocytic uptake through clathrin-coated pits that form clathrin-coated endocytic vesicles.
- DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2005.09.024 Kaksonen, Toret and Drubin 2005 analyzed the modular clathrin- and actin-mediated endocytic machinery in yeast.

Mechanism graphs

Coat scaffold proteins assemble on nascent vesicles (ASSEMBLY)

Vesicle-coat scaffold proteins and subtype-specific recruitment or cargo-selection factors assemble on donor membranes into protein coats that cover coated vesicle membranes during transport-vesicle formation.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
vesicle coat scaffold subunits	assemble on	donor membrane	`GO:0006901` GO:0006901 defines vesicle coat assembly as the addition of coat proteins to a membrane during transport-vesicle formation.
vesicle coat recruitment and cargo-selection factors	helps recruit	vesicle coat scaffold subunits	`GO:0030119` GO:0030119 defines AP-type adaptor complexes as linking clathrin or another coat-forming molecule to a membrane surface. `DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2012.01.015` Yu et al. 2012 showed that Arf1-GTP binds COPI coatomer subcomplexes during coatomer recruitment to membranes. `PMID:8004676` Barlowe et al. 1994 identified Sar1p among the COPII Sec proteins that drive ER vesicle budding.
vesicle coat scaffold subunits	is part of	vesicle coat	`GO:0030125` GO:0030125 places clathrin vesicle coats under the vesicle coat parent. `GO:0030126` GO:0030126 places COPI vesicle coats under the vesicle coat parent. `GO:0030127` GO:0030127 places COPII vesicle coats under the vesicle coat parent.
vesicle coat	is part of	coated vesicle membrane	`GO:0030120` GO:0030120 records vesicle coat as part of the coated vesicle membrane.
vesicle coat	assembles during	vesicle coating	`GO:0006901` GO:0006901 denotes addition of coat proteins to a membrane during transport-vesicle formation.

Discussions

CURATION_TODO (OPEN): Resolve exact source-neutral boundaries for clathrin triskelions, COPI coatomer and Arf-family GTPases, COPII Sar1 and Sec coat subcomplexes, and AP/GGA or other cargo-adaptor modules without promoting a subtype-specific protein into the broad vesicle-coat parent. The broad vesicle coat parent spans clathrin, COPI, and COPII coats. Those coats use different scaffold proteins, small GTPases, and cargo adaptors, so this record keeps the parent coarse and leaves exact subtype composition to child records.

Evidence

GO:0030120 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the vesicle coat.
GO:0030117 Gene Ontology cellular-component parent for membrane coats.
GO:0030662 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the coated vesicle membrane that carries vesicle coats.
GO:0030125 Gene Ontology child term for the clathrin vesicle coat.
GO:0030126 Gene Ontology child term for the COPI vesicle coat.
GO:0030127 Gene Ontology child term for the COPII vesicle coat.
GO:0030119 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for AP-type membrane coat adaptor complexes.
GO:0072583 Gene Ontology biological-process term for clathrin-dependent endocytosis.
GO:0006901 Gene Ontology biological-process term for vesicle coat assembly.
DOI:10.1083/jcb.106.5.1453 Payne et al. 1988, Protein transport to the vacuole and receptor-mediated endocytosis by clathrin heavy chain-deficient yeast, Journal of Cell Biology.
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.
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.2005.09.024 Kaksonen, Toret and Drubin 2005, A Modular Design for the Clathrin- and Actin-Mediated Endocytosis Machinery, Cell.

Curation history

2026-09-16T02:34:35Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-16T02:37:01Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added membrane-coat parentage, coated-vesicle-membrane parthood, a reviewed-label-only broad scaffold component, Saccharomyces scope, vesicle-coat assembly, DOI/GO evidence, a nonmechanistic coat-assembly graph, and a subtype-boundary TODO.
2026-09-16T02:37:42Z codex · REFINED_INITIAL_CURATION — Narrowed the Saccharomyces canonical-example note to the cited COPII work and generalized the broad scaffold-component wording.
2026-09-16T02:42:35Z codex · FIXED_ID_LABEL_CORRESPONDENCE — Changed GO:0006901 function and graph-node labels to the canonical vesicle coating label used by the id-label correspondence gate.
2026-09-16T02:50:52Z codex · ADDRESSED_PR_REVIEW — Resolved PR #1053 review issues #1054 and #1055 by adding a broad coat recruitment and cargo-selection component, adding AP/Arf/Sar1 and clathrin endocytosis evidence, and wiring the new component into the nonmechanistic vesicle-coat assembly graph.
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 unreadable COPI ARF evidence with reachable Yu et al. 2012 evidence for Arf1-dependent coatomer recruitment.

Source: data/structures/other/vesicle_coat.yaml