Golgi Apparatus Structure

The shape and size of the Golgi complex depend upon the physiological state of the cells. Mainly it is composed of four parts – cisternae, tubules, vesicles, and vacuoles. The structure of the Golgi apparatus is as follows:

• Golgi Apparatus consists of flat, disc-shaped sacs or cisternae of 0.5µm to 1.0µm diameter. These are stacked parallel to each other.
• The Golgi cisternae are concentrically arranged near the nucleus.
• They have distinct convex cis or the forming face and concave trans or the maturing face. These faces are completely different from each other but are interconnected.
• The organelle has a cis face for receiving materials from the endoplasmic reticulum and a trans face for shipping vesicles to various cellular organs.
• Vesicles move from the cis to the trans face during processing.
• This distinctive structure of the Golgi apparatus allows to efficiently process, modify, and package macromolecules within the cell.

Golgi apparatus is an organelle found in most of the eukaryotes. It consists of a series of flattened membrane sacs called cisternae. These cisternae are present one over the other to form the Golgi complex. It is responsible for packaging proteins into vesicles before secretion and therefore plays a key role in the secretory pathway.

The various functions performed by the Golgi apparatus are: it modifies and processes lipids for cellular use, contributes to the formation of lysosomes for cellular waste management and modifies protein by adding carbohydrates and phosphate groups to proteins. In this article, we will study the Golgi apparatus and diagram its structure, and functions in detail.