Golgi disassembly in apoptosis: cause or effect?
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Updated: Sep 25, 2026

Detection and Isolation of Apoptotic Bodies to High Purity
Published on: August 12, 2018
1Department of Cell Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 725 N. Wolfe St, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. machamer@jhmi.edu
Abstract:
The Golgi complex undergoes a dramatic disassembly process during apoptosis. Some Golgi proteins implicated in Golgi structure and vesicle transport are cleaved during apoptosis, and expression of noncleavable mutants of these proteins delays Golgi disassembly after pro-apoptotic stimuli. Cleavage of Golgi structural proteins and subsequent disassembly of the organelle could simply be the result of the apoptotic process. However, recent studies raise the intriguing possibility that cleavage of Golgi proteins during apoptosis might be required for more than disassembly of the organelle.
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