Any of the small, heterogeneous, artifactual, vesicular particles, 50-150 nm in diameter, that are formed when some eukaryotic cells are homogenized and that sediment on centrifugation at 100000 g.

A body found in cells where the endoplasmic reticulum is located several micrometers from the Golgi complex, formed from COP II coated vesicles that fuse with each other shortly after their formation.

The chemical reactions involving polysaccharides, polymers of more than 10 monosaccharide residues joined by glycosidic linkages, as carried out by individual cells.

A compound membranous cytoplasmic organelle of eukaryotic cells, consisting of flattened, ribosome-free vesicles arranged in a more or less regular stack. The Golgi apparatus differs from the endoplasmic reticulum in often having slightly thicker membranes, appearing in sections as a characteristic shallow semicircle so that the convex side (cis or entry face) abuts the endoplasmic reticulum, secretory vesicles emerging from the concave side (trans or exit face). In vertebrate cells there is usually one such organelle, while in invertebrates and plants, where they are known usually as dictyosomes, there may be several scattered in the cytoplasm. The Golgi apparatus processes proteins produced on the ribosomes of the rough endoplasmic reticulum; such processing includes modification of the core oligosaccharides of glycoproteins, and the sorting and packaging of proteins for transport to a variety of cellular locations. Three different regions of the Golgi are now recognized both in terms of structure and function: cis, in the vicinity of the cis face, trans, in the vicinity of the trans face, and medial, lying between the cis and trans regions.

The breakdown into simpler components of a macromolecule, any large molecule including proteins, nucleic acids and carbohydrates, as carried out by individual cells.

The set of thin, flattened membrane-bounded compartments, called cisternae, that form the central portion of the Golgi complex. The stack usually comprises cis, medial, and trans cisternae; the cis- and trans-Golgi networks are not considered part of the stack.