The influence of salt on the aggregation state of spectrin from bovine erythrocyte membranes.

Sedimentation velocity and gel filtration experiments have been performed with bovine spectrin over a wide range of neutral salt concentrations. Increasing salt concentrations tend to increase both the sedimentation coefficient of spectrin and the elution volume of the protein from 4% agarose columns. No conformation change can be detected by means of optical rotation measurements as the salt concentration is raised. The results are incompatible with the hypothesis that salt causes the aggregation of spectrin, but are consistent with the existence of marked charge effects operative at low salt concentrations. In support of the charge effect hypothesis, acidic groups have been detected on the agarose gels, and ion-exclusion behaviour on the column has been observed with other proteins of similar size.