Abstract. Thin, frozen sections of a HeLa cell line were double labeled with specific antibodies to localize the trans-Golgi enzyme,/31,4 gaiactosyltransferase (GaiT) and the medial enzyme, N-acetylglucosaminylransferase I (NAGT I). The latter was detected by generating a HeLa cell line stably expressing a myctagged version of the endogenous protein. GAIT was found in the trans-cisterna and trans-Golgi network but, contrary to expectation, NAGT I was found both in the medial-and trans-cisternae, overlapping the distribution of GAIT. About one third of the NAGT I and half of the GaIT were found in the shared, transcisterna. These data show that the differences between cisternae are determined not by different sets of enzymes but by different mixtures.T HE construction of N-linked, bi-antennary oligosaccharides in the Golgi apparatus is a three-stage process.The first stage, thought to take place in the cis-Golgi network (CGN)l/cis-cisternae, continues the trimming of mannose residues started in the ER. The second stage, in medial-cisternae, involves addition of N-acetylglucosamine, the removal of a further two mannose residues and the addition of another N-acetylglucosamine. Fucose may also be added at this stage. The third and last stage, in the transcisternae and trans-Golgi network (TGN), involves addition of galactose followed by sialic acid (for review see Kornfeld and Kornfeld, 1985).These activities have been assigned to the different cisternae and networks based on localiTation of the appropriate enzymes and their products (for reviews see Rothman, 1985, andRoth, 1987). The first stage enzyme, mannosidase I, is thought to reside in the CGN/cis-cisternae because it acts on oligosaccharides attached to proteins that have just left the ER (Balch et al., 1986) and before the second stage enzyme, N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase I (NAGT I), which has been immunolocalized to medialcisternae . Other second stage enzymes (mannosidase II and NAGT H) cofractionate with NAGT I on sucrose gradients and, since they can be partially separated from third-stage enzymes (/31,4 galactosyltransferase [GAIT] and ot2,6 sialyltransferase [SialylT]) on the same gradients (Dunphy et al., 1981; Dunphy and Rothman, Tommy Nilsson and Marc Pypaert contributed equally to this work.