Stapled Golgi cisternae remain in place as cargo passes through the stack

Most plant and animal cells contain an organelle known as the Golgi apparatus, which consists of a series of four to six stacked cisternae. Almost all the proteins that are secreted from the cell, or targeted to its plasma membrane, transit through the Golgi. This process takes roughly 5–20 min. Although transport of proteins through the Golgi was first observed more than 50 years ago, it is still unclear exactly how this process occurs. One possibility is that proteins to be packaged move through the cisternae enclosed in vesicles, as if on a conveyor belt. Alternatively, the proteins themselves may remain stationary while the Golgi cisternae move over them. Now, Lavieu et al. provide evidence that the Golgi shows both mobile and static behaviour depending on the type and size of the cargo being processed. To distinguish between these two mechanisms, they created a new type of protein cargo—which they called a ‘staple’—that became fixed to the walls on each side of the cisternae and could not, therefore, move freely through the Golgi. They compared the processing of this protein to that of a more typical soluble protein cargo, which could move freely through the Golgi stack. Surprisingly, the Golgi processed these two types of cargo in very different ways. The staples remained embedded in the walls in the center of the cisternae, whereas the conventional soluble cargo was transported past the staples and collected at the edges of the cisternae, which are known as rims. These are wider than the center of the cisternae, and the staples are too narrow to span them. Lavieu et al. suggest that the Golgi cisternae can be divided into two functionally distinct domains: the centers of cisternae, which remain stationary, and the edges or rims, which can move. In addition to increasing our understanding of how proteins are prepared for transport inside cells, this new mechanism reconciles seemingly conflicting data by revealing that the Golgi can be both mobile and static.