
Healthy red blood cells owe their shape to muscle-like structures Discovery by Scripps Research scientists may offer insight into treating blood disorders such as sickle cell anemia
Left to right: Researchers Velia Fowler, Alyson Smith and Roberta Nowak led the new study at The Scripps Research Institute (Photo by Don Boomer)
LA JOLLA, CA April 4, 2018 Red blood cells are on a wild ride. As they race through the body to deliver oxygen, they must maintain a distinct dimpled shape and bounce back into form even after squishing through narrow capillaries. Red blood cells that can't keep their shape are associated with diseases like sickle cell anemia.
In a new study, Velia Fowler, PhD, and her lab at The Scripps Research Institute report that a protein called myosin IIA contracts to give red blood cells their distinctive shape. The findings, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could shed light on sickle cell diseases and other disorders where red blood cells are deformed.
Red blood cells have been studied for centuries, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions about how they adopt their shape, says Alyson Smith, graduate student at Scripps Research and co-first author of the study. Our study adds an important piece to this puzzle.
Red blood cells look like puffy disks with concave dimples on top and bottom. But the blood cells of people with certain disorders take on other shapes. In severe forms of sickle cell diseases, genetic disorders most common among people of African descent, the cells are shaped like crescent moons or sickles.
These misshapen cells are rigid and sticky, causing them to become stuck in blood vessels, which prevent the blood from carrying oxygen throughout the body, causing anemia. About 300,000 children are born with sickle cell anemia each year, and there is currently no cure for these disorders.
Scientists have long wondered how healthy red blood cells maintain their dimpled shape, and whether it is a passive or active process. Are they just like rubber inner tubes that passively bounce back to their former shape after being squeezed or bumped? Or is something mechanical in the cell membrane the outer skin of the cell actively contracting and relaxing to maintain the shape? Answering these questions could also help explain what goes wrong when red blood cells are too rigid to deform easily as they flow through blood vessels.
Smith and Roberta Nowak, a research assistant, led the work to solve this puzzle, which had piqued Fowler's interest since she was a postdoctoral researcher in the 1980s. They found that red blood cells actively regulate their shape, thanks to myosin IIA which is related to the protein that drives muscle contraction in other parts of the body.
The team used advanced microscopes at Scripps Research to capture 3D images showing myosin IIA under the cell membrane. The researchers found that red blood cell myosin IIA molecules assemble into barbell-shaped structures called filaments. Specialized regions at both ends of the myosin IIA filaments can pull on a membrane-associated structural protein called actin to control the stiffness of the cell membrane.
You need active contraction on the cell membrane, similar to how muscles contract, says Fowler. The myosin pulls on the actin to provide tension in the membrane, and then that tension maintains the biconcave shape.
The team then treated red blood cells with a compound called blebbistatin, which stops myosin from working properly. They found that the treated cells lost their ability to maintain a shape and looked floppy and unhealthy. This further confirmed that myosin IIA is important for maintain red blood cell shape.
Understanding the architecture of the membrane is an important step toward finding the causes of diseases where red blood cells are deformed. Fowler says there might be a chance someday to inhibit myosin IIA in red blood cells and restore some of elasticity they lose in sickle cell anemia, letting them bend and fit through capillaries.
Even just a small change in those sickle cells might be enough, says Nowak, who served as study co-first author with Smith.
This view of red blood cell shape has sparked many new questions. The study suggests that cells use a process called phosphorylation to make the myosin IIA filaments on the cell membrane more stable but how this process is controlled remains a mystery. Going forward, the researchers hope to learn more about what regulates myosin IIA's activity in red blood cells and even other cell types, like neurons.
The study, Myosin IIA interacts with the spectrin-actin membrane skeleton to control red blood cell membrane curvature and deformability, included authors from the Rochester Institute of Technology, The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra-Northwell.
The work was supported by the Whitaker Foundation, the National Institutes of Health (grants GM34225, HL083464, HL134043 and HL126497), a National Science Foundation award (CBET 1560709), the NIH/NCATS CTSA Award (grant UL1 TR001114) to the Scripps Translational Science Institute, and an Allied World St. Baldrick's Scholar Award.
About The Scripps Research Institute
The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is one of the worlds largest independent, not-for-profit organizations focusing on research in the biomedical sciences. TSRI is internationally recognized for its contributions to science and health, including its role in laying the foundation for new treatments for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, and other diseases. An institution that evolved from the Scripps Metabolic Clinic founded by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps in 1924, the institute now employs more
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
01/04/2026
January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION
Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...
31/03/2026
MeyerPro delivered the LED production for the Microsoft Ignite 2025 keynote at Chase Center in San Francisco, using more than 2,700 ROE Visual panels across mul...
31/03/2026
The Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF) is expanding membership outreach in 2026...
31/03/2026
ViewLift and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) have announced the launch of ViewLift Conversational AI Search on the MyOutdoorTV platform. The feature enables natural language...
31/03/2026
The Atlanta Braves and Gray Media have announced a multi-year agreement to simul...
31/03/2026
Gravity Media has delivered broadcast services for TAB Golden Slipper Day at Rosehill Gardens on March 21 and will now cover The Star Championships at Royal Ran...
31/03/2026
Synamedia has announced that Mileto Tecnologia, a Brazilian pay-TV operator, has selected the Synamedia Go platform for its OTT expansion. Mileto is also deploy...
31/03/2026
KMH Integration will attend NAB Show in Las Vegas with a focus on what the company calls AV Casting - an approach built on the idea that professional AV and bro...
31/03/2026
Prime Video will carry live coverage of the first and second rounds of the 2026 Masters Tournament, beginning at 1:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, April 9 and Friday, A...
31/03/2026
The NHL and its U.S. and Canadian broadcast partners have announced a collaborat...
31/03/2026
Daktronics has partnered with Wake Forest to manufacture and install a new end z...
31/03/2026
The National Football League has announced that Las Vegas will host Super Bowl LXIII in 2029 at Allegiant Stadium. The announcement was made at the NFL Annual M...
31/03/2026
The NFL has announced a partnership with TMRW Sports to develop and operate a professional flag football league for women and men. The league will launch with i...
31/03/2026
Sennheiser's Spectera wideband bidirectional wireless system was used by bot...
31/03/2026
Sports Studio Inc., the company behind Free Live Sports, has announced the formation of an Advisory Board with five media and technology executives.
Each of o...
31/03/2026
PSSI and Appear have announced a new phase in their collaboration, with PSSI deploying Appear's X Platform to upgrade its mobile fleet and PSSI Internationa...
31/03/2026
As sports media organization continue to seek out new ways to streamline their p...
31/03/2026
With two new expansion teams and viewership/attendance on the rise, the league's production/broadcast arm and its partner NEP Connected Solutions are busier...
31/03/2026
Spotify has evolved from a streaming platform to an interactive, multiformat eco...
31/03/2026
Lastest New Universal Synthesizer System module announced
Make Noise Music have recently announced the launch of the latest addition to their New Universal ...
31/03/2026
True Stereo DynIR Engine, Virtual Load Shaper & more
Two notes Audio Engineering's Captor X reactive load box and cabinet simulator has built up a solid...
31/03/2026
By Kiera Williams
Every year, a new group of emerging media and entertainment professionals steps into the HPA community - curious, talented, and ready to grow...
31/03/2026
MELBOURNE, Fla., March 31, 2026 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) will release its first quarter 2026 financial results before the market opens on Thursday, A...
31/03/2026
Photo courtesy of NASA. An illustration shows NASA's Perseverance rover operating on the surface of Mars....
31/03/2026
L3Harris Technologies and Comtech Telecommunications Corp. have collaborated to introduce the next evolution in resilient multi-orbit capability for today's...
31/03/2026
Rebel Sport leads ad investment as brands compete for a large, active and qualit...
31/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
31/03/2026
CueScript, a leading international developer of professional teleprompting solutions, is enhancing its platform with three innovations that elevate flexibility,...
31/03/2026
#GALSNGEAR will host a series of meetups, panel discussions, and networking events during the 2026 NAB Show, taking place April 18 22 in Las Vegas.
The organi...
31/03/2026
At the 2026 NAB Show (April 19-22, Las Vegas Convention Center, Booth #N1328), Imagine Communications is introducing AI assisted scheduling capabilities within ...
31/03/2026
High-density upgrade for mobile fleet and PSSI International Teleport gives PSSI more flexibility for premium live event coverage
PSSI and Appear today announc...
31/03/2026
Solid State Logic Enhances Virtualized System T Platform to Deliver Scalable Clo...
31/03/2026
OWC to Showcase Storage, Workflow Acceleration, and Reliability Solutions for Cr...
31/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
31/03/2026
OpenDrives, a leader in software-defined video and rich media storage management solutions, will demonstrate several new innovations at the 2026 NAB Show in Apr...
31/03/2026
At the 2026 NAB Show, SDVI will demonstrate how its Rally media supply chain management platform continues to give media operations teams the tools they need to...
31/03/2026
Boland Communications today announced that at the 2026 NAB Show, it will introduce its new QD4K315HDR10, a 31.5-inch QD-OLED monitor delivering exceptional colo...
31/03/2026
Dr. Paul Tapper, CEO of NUGEN Audio, will lead an essential industry discussion at the 2026 NAB Show, examining whether dialog intelligibility is poised to beco...
31/03/2026
BCNEXXT will use NAB 2026 to focus on how broadcasters can turn today's operational and market pressures into opportunity. Meeting with customers in the IAB...
31/03/2026
Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, will showcase its latest innovations at th...
31/03/2026
DHD announces that AI-based audio noise reduction is now available as a powerful new option for its XD3 IP Core. Developed in cooperation with ai-coustics, audi...
31/03/2026
PTZOptics will showcase its vision for intelligent video and advanced camera automation at NAB Show 2026 (#N1902). Through immersive demonstrations and technolo...
31/03/2026
Experience Commerce, a leading full-service digital marketing agency and part of the Cheil SWA Group, has secured the social media mandate for ICONIQA Hotels & ...
31/03/2026
Fabric, the entertainment industry's leader in data and operations solutions, will showcase a major expansion of its media technology platform at NAB 2026, ...
31/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
31/03/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...