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FACTS ON
THE GOLGI APPARATUS
by Philip McIntosh
You can’t tell much about it by its name, other than a person
named Golgi (pronounced gol-gee) had something to do with it.”
FIRST REPORTED in 1898 by Italian physician and biologist Camillo Golgi, this organelle is
important in processing proteins into their final configuration and in sending them to their destinations.
THE GOLGI apparatus is also called the Golgi body, Golgi complex, or just Golgi.
THE GOLGI receives vesicles budded off from
the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). These vesicles contain
proteins requiring further processing before they
become active.
THE GOLGI is a “central delivery station.” Proteins
sent there from the ER are modified, repackaged, and
delivered to where they are needed inside the cell.
PROTEINS DESTINED for a role outside
of the cell are packaged into vesicles by the
Golgi, which then sends them to fuse with the cell
membrane to be excreted.
THE GOLGI apparatus is found only in Eukaryotes
— organisms whose cells contain nuclei, such as those
of plants, animals, fungi, and protists.
ALTHOUGH THE Golgi is a large and distinctive
organelle, it took the application of the electron
microscope before it was accepted as a legitimate
and distinct subcellular structure.
IN APPEARANCE, the Golgi resembles a series
of flattened pancake-shaped vesicles, usually located
near the nucleus, not far from the ER.
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THE INDIVIDUAL small membranous sacs that
make up the Golgi are called cisternae or dictyosomes.
IN PLANTS, the Golgi apparatus also plays a
major role in production of polysaccharides destined
for incorporation into the cell wall.