Issue Archive

The crystal structure of the red cell spectrin tetramer complex is superimposed on a blood smear from an hereditary elliptocytosis patient (blood smear photograph courtesy of Patrick Gallagher, Yale University). Sites where hereditary elliptocytosis/hereditary pyropoikilocytosis mutations occur are indicated using space-filling spheres on the ribbon diagrams of the α (blue) and β (gold) subunits. Side chains are color coded based on the effect on tetramer binding affinity of known mutations. See the article by Ipsaro et al on page 4843.