The spatial separation of processing and transport functions to the interior and periphery of the Golgi stack

  1. Hieng Chiong Tie
  2. Alexander Ludwig
  3. Sara Sandin
  4. Lei Lu  Is a corresponding author
  1. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Abstract

It is unclear how the two principal functions of the Golgi complex, processing and transport, are spatially organized. Studying such spatial organization by optical imaging is challenging, partially due to the dense packing of stochastically oriented Golgi stacks. Using super-resolution microscopy and markers such as Giantin, we developed a method to identify en face and side views of individual nocodazole-induced Golgi mini-stacks. Our imaging uncovered that Golgi enzymes preferentially localize to the cisternal interior, appearing as a central disk or inner-ring, whereas components of the trafficking machinery reside at the periphery of the stack, including the cisternal rim. Interestingly, conventional secretory cargos appeared at the cisternal interior during their intra-Golgi trafficking and transiently localized to the cisternal rim before exiting the Golgi. In contrast, bulky cargos were found only at the rim. Our study therefore directly demonstrates the spatial separation of processing and transport functions within the Golgi complex.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Hieng Chiong Tie

    School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Alexander Ludwig

    School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Sara Sandin

    School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Lei Lu

    School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
    For correspondence
    lulei@ntu.edu.sg
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8192-1471

Funding

Ministry of Education - Singapore (Tier1 RG132/15)

  • Sara Sandin
  • Lei Lu

National Medical Research Council-Singapore (NMRC/CBRG/007/2012)

  • Lei Lu

Ministry of Education - Singapore (Tier1 RG35/17)

  • Sara Sandin
  • Lei Lu

Ministry of Education - Singapore (Tier1 RG48/13)

  • Sara Sandin
  • Lei Lu

Ministry of Education - Singapore (Tier2 MOE2015-T2-2-073)

  • Sara Sandin
  • Lei Lu

Ministry of Education - Singapore (Tier3 MOE 2012-T3-1-001)

  • Sara Sandin
  • Lei Lu

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2018, Tie et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Hieng Chiong Tie
  2. Alexander Ludwig
  3. Sara Sandin
  4. Lei Lu
(2018)
The spatial separation of processing and transport functions to the interior and periphery of the Golgi stack
eLife 7:e41301.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.41301

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.41301

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