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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Jul 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Cell Physiol. 2017 Mar 1;232(7):1587–1590. doi: 10.1002/jcp.25387

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Exosomes are formed via the endosomal pathway. Endocytic vesicles result from invagination of the plasma membrane and can fuse to form early endosomes. During maturation from early to late endosomes, also called multivesicular bodies (MVBs), invaginations in the endosomal membrane form intraluminal vesicles (ILVs). The late endosome/MVB then either fuses with a lysosome to degrade its contents, or fuses with the plasma membrane and releases the ILVs into the extracellular space as exosomes.