Biophysical Study of the Effect of Age on Erythrocyte Membrane Skeleton Proteins and Hemoglobin in Mature Rats

The aging process is related to some functional changes of the tissues and cells, including cell membrane. Erythrocytes, are among the most suitable biological models to study the effect of aging on cell function, as they have no nuclei and other organelles. Moreover, any alterations of erythrocytes are accompanied by changes in absorbance detection in UVvisible emission. Also, the biophysical properties of the erythrocyte membrane skeleton proteins and hemoglobin, play important roles in deformability of erythrocytes. Furthermore, the erythrocytes’ deformability and aggregation declines and increases respectively, during aging process. Also hemoglobin affinity to oxygen increases and oxygen release to the tissues decreases in aging process. Therefore in this report the effect of age on structural and thermodynamical changes of erythrocyte membrane skeleton proteins and hemoglobin in mature rats are studied by different spectroscopy methods like circular dichroism (CD), FTIR, UV-Visible and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results showed that aging of the rats’ erythrocytes leads to the compactness of erythrocytes membrane skeletal proteins structure. Thus, the reduction in erythrocytes flexibility and increment in the compactness and rigidity of the hemoglobin structure occur. Accordingly, these changes result in more severe iron binding to oxygen and decrease in oxygen delivery to the tissues.