Physico-chemical characterization of the spectrin tetramer from bovine erythrocyte membranes.

The tetramer of bovine spectrin has been purified and characterized in terms of its hydrodynamic and optical properties. (1) The molecular weight, from both sedimentation equilibrium and sedimentation velocity/diffusion measurements, is close to one million. (2) The hydrodynamic properties suggest a highly expanded but basically symmetrical molecule of Stokes radius 200 A. (3) Optical rotatory dispersion measurements indicate a high degree of order in the tertiary structure of the molecule. These results are not consistent with the assumption that is often made, that the spectrin molecule is a long fibrous rod.