Structure

With no cell compartment or organelle has morphology served such a pivotal role in its discovery and investigation as with the apparatus of Golgi. The original description of the “apparato reticulo interno” (internal reticular apparatus) now known as the apparatus of Golgi or Golgi apparatus was based on light microscopy (Chapter 1). Both classical Golgi apparatus study prior to 1953 and the modern rediscovery due to the advent of the electron microscope all were based on morphology. An understanding of Golgi apparatus architecture was one of the more important early developments resulting from electron microscopy.

Morphology was the sole basis to guide early attempts at Golgi apparatus isolation and, until its isolation in the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s, and the introduction of autoradiography (Peterson and LeBlond, 1964), morphology was the only basis for investigation of this complex cellular component. Even today, morphology remains as a major criterion by which Golgi apparatus are defined.