Stress-free state of the red blood cell membrane and the deformation of its skeleton

Cellular & Molecular Biology Letters

Saša Svetina¹  Tjaša Švelc² 

[1] Institute of Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia$$Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia$$;Institute of Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia$$

关键词: Red blood cell;    Stress-free shape;    Membrane skeleton;    Skeleton deformation;    Spectrin;    Micropipette aspiration;   

DOI  :  10.2478/s11658-012-0005-8

学科分类：分子生物学，细胞生物学和基因

来源: Uniwersytet Wroclawski * Wydzial Biotechnologii / University of Wroclaw, Faculty of Biotechnology

【 摘 要 】

The response of a red blood cell (RBC) to deformation depends on its membrane, a composite of a lipid bilayer and a skeleton, which is a closed, twodimensional network of spectrin tetramers as its bonds. The deformation of the skeleton and its lateral redistribution are studied in terms of the RBC resting state for a fixed geometry of the RBC, partially aspirated into a micropipette. The geometry of the RBC skeleton in its initial state is taken to be either two concentric circles, a references biconcave shape or a sphere. It is assumed that in its initial state the skeleton is distributed laterally in a homogeneous manner with its bonds either unstressed, presenting its stress-free state, or prestressed. The lateral distribution was calculated using a variational calculation. It was assumed that the spectrin tetramer bonds exhibit a linear elasticity. The results showed a significant effect of the initial skeleton geometry on its lateral distribution in the deformed state. The proposed model is used to analyze the measurements of skeleton extension ratios by the method of applying two modes of RBC micropipette aspiration.

【 授权许可】

Unknown