A.S. Smith et al., “Myosin IIA interacts with the spectrin-actin membrane skeleton to control red blood cell membrane curvature and deformability,” PNAS, 115:E4377–85, 2018.
Healthy red blood cells are puffy with a dimpled middle. “It’s just a really cool shape,” says Velia Fowler, a cell biologist at The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. For decades, researchers have been wondering what gives red blood cells their characteristic curves, and now Fowler and her colleagues have the answer: myosin proteins tug on the red blood cell’s cytoskeletal membrane, creating a divot at the center.
Back in the 1980s, when Fowler started working with red blood cells, it wasn’t clear whether they even contained myosin. She suspected they might, because the protein appeared to play a role in giving other cells their shapes. After painstaking experiments, Fowler finally showed that red blood cells do carry the protein, but exactly how it influenced ...
