Fig. 11

Schematic diagram showing the differences between normal erythrocytes and sickle cells, as well as the effects of MβCD treatment. Compared with normal erythrocytes (A), sickle cells had a thicker hemoglobin layer (in red) associated with the plasma membrane (in blue) and the spectrin skeleton/network (in green), rougher outer (not shown here) and inner surfaces of the cell envelope, and a higher stiffness of the entire cell (in a gradient blue; the color scale bar shows the different extents of cell stiffness from high to low) (B). After MβCD treatment at a relatively mild concentration, many cholesterol molecules (in yellow) in the plasma membrane were removed/depleted, the thickness of the membrane-associated hemoglobin layer (or the cell envelope) decreased, the roughness of the outer (not shown here) and inner surfaces of the cell envelope increased, and the stiffness of the entire cell also reduced for both normal and sickle erythrocytes (C) while the MβCD-induced changes on sickle cells were stronger than the changes on normal cells (not shown here)