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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: Semin Cancer Biol. 2014 Apr 28;0:14–23. doi: 10.1016/j.semcancer.2014.04.010

Figure 1. Biogenesis and cargo of EVs.

Figure 1

Extracellular vesicles are comprised of several different types of vesicles including exosomes, microvesicles and oncosomes. Exosomes are formed by the internalization of the endocytic membrane and formation of MVB inside the cell. The fusion of the MVBs with the plasma membrane results in the release of exosomes into the extracellular milieu. Microvesicles are formed by the outward budding of the plasma membrane and are directly released into the extracellular milieu. Oncosomes are a larger type of EV released by cancer cells through budding of the plasma membrane. EVs contain a variety of proteins, RNA species and types of DNA. (Modified from [62].)