Cytoskeleton and red cell shape

A view is presented on different roles which the bilayer part of the membrane and the skeleton play in establishing normal and some abnormal RBC shapes. The system is first studied at the level of elastic properties of red blood cell membrane where the latter is considered to be a trilayered structure. Then the contributions to the membrane energy are introduced which cause the membrane to become laterally inhomogeneous, in particular, the skeleton-bilayer interaction, the interaction between the membrane embedded molecules and the membrane curvature, and the distributional free energy of membrane embedded molecules. It is invoked that the role of skeleton in stabilizing red blood cell membrane is in keeping membrane integral proteins laterally distributed as homogeneously as possible.