The Golgi apparatus during epithelial differentiation: a quantitative morphological study of maturation compartments in keratinised epithelium from hamster cheek pouch mucosa.
Stereological and other morphometric techniques have been used to investigate the quantitative morphological characteristics of the Golgi complex in defined basal, spinous and granular layers of hamster cheek pouch epithelium. As the cell migrates between basal and granular layers, there are reductions in the volumetric, numerical and surface densities of Golgi per unit volume of epithelial cell cytoplasm. When these density estimates are related to the average cell, the average granular cell has a higher number of Golgi complexes with a greater cisternal and associated vesicular volume and membrane surface area than the average basal cell. Both the volume and surface area of individual Golgi systems are smaller in the average granular cell when compared with the average basal cell. We suggest that these structural alterations are associated with the increased secretory activity of spinous and granular cells which is primarily effected by the production of membrane-coating granules, organelles which are probably responsible for producing the intercellular permeability barrier. These changes are also accompanied by increases in the amounts of rough endoplasmic reticulum and plasma membrane, supporting the proposition that the epithelial cell becomes increasingly metabolically active as it differentiates.
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White
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Gohari
D000818:Animals; D002451:Cell Compartmentation; D002452:Cell Count; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D006224:Cricetinae; D004848:Epithelium / Q000502:physiology / Q000648:ultrastructure; D006056:Golgi Apparatus / Q000502:physiology / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D007633:Keratins / Q000378:metabolism; D008647:Mesocricetus; D009061:Mouth Mucosa / Q000502:physiology / Q000648:ultrastructure*
D007633:Keratins