Methods to study signaling at the golgi apparatus

Research on the secretory pathway in the past three decades accounts for our known knowledge about the composition and architecture of organelles and about the machinery that regulates membrane transport. An emerging topic in the past few years was the discovery that the secretory pathway is regulated by signaling, and in this regard, the Golgi apparatus received major attention. In the current chapter, we will highlight various techniques that are used by us and others to study signaling at the Golgi. We describe methods to study lipid and protein phosphorylation at the Golgi and various techniques for studying spatial activation of GTPases at this organelle. We also discuss how combining these techniques and improving their limitations is important for gaining a better understanding of how the Golgi intersects with various signal transduction pathways.