. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Jul 1.

Published in final edited form as: Trends Mol Med. 2014 Apr 3;20(7):385–393. doi: 10.1016/j.molmed.2014.03.002

Table 1.

Characteristics of different EV types

	Exosomes	Microvesicles	Apoptotic bodies
Intracellular origin	Multivesicular bodies	Plasma membrane	Plasma membrane
Size	40–150 nm	50–2000 nm	50–5000 nm
Suggested markers	ALIX, TSG101, tetraspanins	Unknown	DNA, histones
Density	1.13–1.19 g/cm³	Unknown	1.16–1.28 g/cm³
Appearance in transmission electron microscopy	Cup-shaped	Heterogeneous	Heterogeneous
Refs	[6, 84, 85]	[84, 86]	[87, 88]