Disassembly and reassembly of the Golgi apparatus

Although the stacked cisternal structure of the Golgi has been known for many years, until recently little was Known about the proteins involved in maintaining and regulating this structure. Using a combination of morphological and biochemical approaches a number of proteins have been identified as candidate structural molecules of the Golgi complex in animal cells. These include the Golgi enzymes involved in oligosaccharide processing, a family of proteins discovered as autoantigens, and a group of proteins better known as components of the actin cytoskeleton In erythrocytes. In this review we will focus on the possible roles these proteins may be playing in maintaining the structure of the Golgi. In addition we will discuss the cell-free systems which have been used to investigate the disassembly and reassembly of the Golgi which occurs wizen the cell divides, and what we have learnt about the structure of the Golgi from these approaches.