A model of spectrin as a concertina in the erythrocyte membrane skeleton |
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Authors: | Bloch R J Pumplin D W |
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Affiliation: | Department of Physiology University of Maryland School of Medicine, 660 W. Redwood Street, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA. |
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Abstract: | To maintain its distinctive biconcave shape, the erythrocyte has a skeleton composed largely of the protein spectrin, which associates closely and exclusively with the cell membrane. Although the membrane skeleton forms through specific protein-protein interactions of defined stoichiometry, it has a flexible structure and organization due to the unusual molecular properties of spectrin. Here we describe these properties and propose a model to account for the extensibility of spectrin and for its organization in the skeleton. |
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