This book gives a survey of the architecture of the Golgi apparatus, as
revealed by morphological and cytochemical studies with a variety of
cell types. The results presented include demonstrations of Golgi
architecture in the course of cell differentiation, at varying
functional cellular states, and under the influence of
microtubule-disrupting agents. Emphasis is particularly placed on the
organization of subsections of the Golgi apparatus and the questions of
how Golgi subsections may be related to functional subcompartments of
the Golgi system. By means of affinity-cytochemical approaches, using a
palette of lectins of diverse sugar specificities, it is shown that
functional subcompartments can be distributed in the complex Golgi
system irrespective of the morphological subdivision in
cis-medial-trans-transmost subsections. The use of pre- and
post-embedment lectin-cytochemical approaches as a tool for the
localization of functional Golgi subcompartments is of particular
interest, especially as some of the lectins have been used in these
approaches for the first time. This book intends to provide synoptic
information on the architecture of the Golgi apparatus, its wide
variability and possible arrangements of Golgi subcompartments.