Cytoskeleton influence on normal and tangent fluctuation modes in the red blood cells

We argue that the paradoxal softness of the red blood cells (RBC) in fluctuation experiments is apparent. We show that the effective surface shear modulus mus of the RBC obtained from fluctuation data and that measured in static deformation experiments have the same order of magnitude. In the RBC model developed for this purpose the spectrin network cytoskeleton with the bulk shear modulus estimated as mu approximately 105-165 Pa contributes to both normal and tangent fluctuations of the system and confines the membrane fluctuations. The calculated ratio of the mean-square amplitudes / is 2-3 orders of magnitude smaller than it is in the free membrane with the same bending and shear moduli.