Membrane attachment sites for the membrane cytoskeletal protein 4.1 of the red blood cell.

The identity of the membrane binding sites for the membrane cytoskeletal protein 4.1 of the human red blood cell has been investigated. Exhaustive proteolysis of the membrane with a range of proteases led to the elimination of only some 60% of all binding sites. The predominant integral membrane protein, band 3, as well as glycophorin A, was totally digested at levels of proteolysis that were essentially without effect on the number of 4.1 binding sites. Proteolysis caused scission of the polypeptide chain of glycophorin C (together with the minor product, glycophorin D, of the same gene), but left a fragment from the region of the C-terminus still attached to the membrane. We have found a low-molecular weight protein, possessing an epitope (recognized by an antibody directed against the cytoplasmic domain of glycophorin C) in common with this proteolytic fragment, in cells of a Leach phenotype, which are characterized by lack of extracellular epitopes of glycophorin C. When these membranes were extracted at low ionic strength to dissociate the membrane cytoskeleton, approximately half the content of 4.1 was liberated, compared with only some 25% from normal membranes. Cells of a different variant of the Leach phenotype, which are totally devoid of glycophorin C, lost close to 70% of their 4.1 under these circumstances. The Rh(D) transmembrane protein, which interacts with the membrane cytoskeleton, is also resistant to proteolysis of the cytoplasmic membrane surface, but Rhnull cells, devoid of this protein, showed no decreased retention of 4.1. The results suggest that glycophorin C (with D) may contain two types of binding site for 4.1, which would be sufficient in number to account for all the strong binding of 4.1 on normal membranes; modulation of binding at one of the sites by another protein or by lipid is not excluded. A possible site for reinitiation of translation overlapping the premature stop codon in the mutant expressing the truncated glycophorin C can be discerned.