Inside-out vesicles prepared from complement lysed sheep red blood cells

Antibody sensitized sheep red blood cells were lysed to 68% by diluted human serum. The ghosts were shown to undergo vesiculation induced by low ionic strength buffer and gentle shearing forces like osmotically lysed ghosts. About 45% of the vesicles derived from complement lysed ghosts (as referred to vesicle protein) remained floating on top of a linear 3-18% dextran T110 gradient during ultracentrifugation. Using antibodies as probes for sideness about 90% of the floating vesicles displayed an inside-out orientation. Floating inside-out vesicles bear a slightly reduced but significant number of C9 molecules on their inverted extracellular side of the membrane as compared to the (leaky or collapsed) vesicles banding in the gradient. This finding suggests that the floating is not due to a lack of C5b-9 (under the assumption that all C9 was bound to C5b-9). It is concluded that lysis with diluted human serum may result partly in ineffective C5b-9 complexes and/or in lesions with limited permeability which do not impair vesicle floating on top of polymer gradients.