The problem of Golgi material in plant cells

Abstract

1. The methods commonly used to demonstrate Golgi bodies have been metallic impregnation with osmic acid or silver nitrate and vital staining, usually with neutral red. 2. Using these methods investigators have identified the following principal types of Golgi material in plant cells: osmiophilic platelets, the vacuome, small scattered globules, the cortex of the contractile vacuoles, and plastids. 3. Depending upon the methods used to demonstrate it, the Golgi material has been assumed to be a lipoid, a protein, or an acidic aqueous solution. Other evidence indicated that probably none of these was entirely correct. 4. Functions which were assigned by different investigators to structures which they identified as Golgi bodies in plants included:a) secretion of the limosphere of moss androcytes;b) secretion of enzymes involved in photosynthesis;c) contributions to the formation of sterigmata and basidiospores;d) osmo-regulation in flagellates; ande) storage of food. 5. The vacuome-Golgi hypothesis was withdrawn by Guilliermond in 1935. The osmiophilic platelet hypothesis is still upheld by a few investigators. The majority of recent studies of plant cytology have not included Golgi bodies as morphological entities.