Faculty Research 1990 - 1999

Red cell membranes of ankyrin-deficient nb/nb mice lack band 3 tetramers but contain normal membrane skeletons.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1997

Keywords

Ankyrins: df, Biopolymers, Cell-Survival, Diffusion, Erythrocyte-Membrane: ul, Fluorescence-Polarization, Freeze-Fracturing, Mice, Mice-Inbred-Strains, Microscopy-Electron, SUPPORT-NON-U-S-GOVT, SUPPORT-U-S-GOVT-P-H-S

First Page

9596

Last Page

9604

JAX Source

Biochemistry 1997 Aug 5;36(31):9596-604

Grant

HL37462/HL/NHLBI, HL27215/HL/NHLBI, HL32854/HL/NHLBI

Abstract

The role of ankyrin in the formation and stabilization of the spectrin-based skeletal meshwork and of band 3 oligomers was studied by characterizing, in nb/nb mouse red cells, the effect of ankyrin deficiency on skeletal ultrastructure, band 3-skeleton associations, and band 3 oligomeric states. Despite severe ankyrin deficiency, nb/nb mouse red cell skeletal components formed a relatively uniform two-dimensional hexagonal array of junctional complexes cross-linked by spectrin tetramers. Treatment of nb/nb ghosts with the nonionic detergent C12E8 (octaethylene glycol n-dodecyl monoether) resulted in nearly complete extraction of band 3. The extracted band 3 was present exclusively as band 3 dimers. Fluorescence photobleaching recovery and polarized fluorescence depletion measurements showed increases in the laterally (33% vs 10%) and rotationally (90% vs 76%) mobile fractions of band 3 in intact nb/nb compared to control red cells. The rotational correlation time of the major fraction of band 3 molecules was 10-fold shorter in nb/nb compared to control red cells, indicating a significant relaxation of rotational constraints in nb/nb cells. These data suggest that, although ankyrin plays a major role in strengthening the attachment of the skeleton to the membrane bilayer, ankyrin is not required for the formation of a stable two-dimensional spectrin-based skeleton. The absence of band 3 tetramers in the membrane of ankyrin-deficient red cells suggests that ankyrin is required for the formation of stable band 3 tetramers.

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