Abstract
We studied the molecular mechanism of the shape change of erythrocytes with a local anesthetic, lidocaine. The shape of human erythrocytes changed from discocytes to stomatocytes in the presence of lido-caine when ATP was present. But, the shape of resealed ccells which were prepared with 10 mM Tris-HC1 buffer (pH 7.4) containing 2 mM ATP-MgC12 and various substances was not changed from discocytes to stomatocytes with lidocaine. When intact cells and resealed cells which were prepared with various concentrations of Tris-HC1 buffer (pH 7.4) were incubated with various concen-trations of lidocaine and their membrane proteins were analyzed by SDS-PAGE, the densities of bands 62K, 28K and 22K depended on lidocaine concentration: in particular, that of band 28K changed remarkably. These mem-branous 62K-, 28K- and 22K-proteins agreed with cytoplasmic 62K-, 28K- and 22K-proteins in molecular weight. We propose that not only ATP but also the 62K-, 28K- and 22K-proteins in the cytoplasm are concerned with the shape change of human erythrocytes induced with lidocaine.
