Molecular Mechanisms of the Localization of Membrane Proteins in the Yeast Golgi Compartments

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The Golgi apparatus of the eukaryotic cell is an essential organelle at the center of the network of vesicular transport delivering proteins and lipids to the correct locations in the cell. There are several Golgi compartments that have distinct resident proteins and functions, but the mechanism creating and maintaining the differences has long been an unsolved mystery in cell biology. After the discovery and molecular characterization of the transport vesicles and their coat proteins, we realized that the Golgi is an extremely dynamic organelle existing as repeating cycles of appearance, maturation, and disappearance. In this review, we describe essential findings as to the Golgi apparatus uncovered by work on an excellent model microorganism, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, with special reference to the results of our studies.