Properties of the high-molecular-weight protein (spectrin) from human-erythrocyte membranes

The high-molecular-weight protein component from human erythrocytes has been isolated and its solubility properties studied. In physiological solvent conditions the spectrin is not aggregated and is unaffected, both in hydrodynamic properties and conformation, as judged by circular dichroism and intrinsic fluorescence, by the addition of calcium ions. When the pH is decreased an opalescence first sets in, which corresponds to an associated fibrous state of the protein, and when a critical pH is reached precipitation ensues. The precipitation profile is characterised by extreme sharpness, of the kind observed in the phase separation of polyacid-polybase mixtures or of polyampholytes. The addition of calcium ions displaces this precipitation edge towards higher pH. Sodium ions have a similar but smaller effect. The position of the profile is significantly displaced in aged spectrin preparations, or those from frozen erythrocyte ghosts. Fresh preparations of spectrin consist predominantly of a component sedimenting at 9.7 S, with a minor component at 4.4 S (and traces of higher aggregates). The pattern is independent of the ionic strength, or of the presence or absence of calcium ions. The proportion of the small component increases with time, and in spectrin preparations from frozen ghosts it invariably predominates. At low concentrations of guanidine hydrochloride the larger component gives place progressively to the smaller, and vanishes completely when the concentration of the denaturant reaches 1 M. The two components coexist at concentrations below this, and are not in rapid interconversion equilibrium. On recovery of the protein from the guanidine hydrochloride by dialysis, the original pattern of two components is regained. On the other hand the larger component is not found in the material recovered from guanidine hydrochloride solutions of preparations that contain only the small component at the outset. The recovered spectrin is similar to the starting material in its circular dichroism, in its pH-precipitation profiles, and the manner in which the latter is modified by calcium ions. Molecular weight determination by sedimentation equilibrium shows that the 4.4-S species has a molecular weight of some 230 000, which is also the value derived from the extrapolated sedimentation coeffiecient in 6 M guanidine hydrochloride, and thus corresponds to single chains (of which two or more species are resolved in acrylamide gel electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecylsulphate); the 9.7-S species, which characterises what is evidently the native state of the extracted spectrin, is found to be a dimer. The frictional coefficients of the monomer and dimer are appreciably different. That of the dimer is compatible with a somewhat asymmetric structure, but by no means to the extent expected for a myosin-like or paramyosin-like molecule.