Cisternae

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A network of interconnected membranous sacs within a cell, responsible for processing and storing proteins and lipids
2. Cytoplasmic structures consisting of flattened membrane-bound compartments that facilitate the transport and modification of cellular materials
3. Intricate arrangements of membranes that play a crucial role in maintaining cellular functions by organizing and modifying various biochemical substances

Etymology: "Cisternae" is the plural of "cisterna," a Latin word meaning "underground reservoir" or "cistern," used for water tanks and storage pits. The Latin noun came from "cista," a box or chest, which Greeks had borrowed as "kistē" and which goes back to the same root that gave English "chest." So the original idea was a container for holding things, not a membrane. The biological sense arrived much later. In the 1950s, when electron microscopy revealed the flattened, stacked membrane sacs inside cells, researchers needed a name for these structures, and the anatomist Keith Porter and his colleagues were among those who described them in this period. Cell biologists reached for "cisterna" because the sacs looked like the compartments of a storage tank, and the term was adopted as a technical coinage from classical roots.