The Golgi complex in disease and therapy.

The Golgi complex occupies a strategic position in the endomembrane system and acts not only as a key trafficking and sorting station and a vital biosynthetic center for glycoproteins and lipids, but also as an active signaling hub. As such, the Golgi complex participates in the establishment and maintenance of cell compartmentalization and in general, cell processes such as cell growth and apoptosis. The different functions of the Golgi complex are executed by composite molecular machineries that have been exhaustively dissected over the last three decades. These machineries can become dysfunctional as a result of mutations in the respective encoding genes or may be hijacked by infectious agents or misregulated in the course of multifactorial diseases such as neurodegeneration and cancer. Small molecules targeting components of these machineries have been instrumental in dissecting their functions in in vitro studies and some of them have been developed or are currently under development for clinical use.