Whereas marked variations in the clinical manifestations of hereditary spherocytosis have long been recognized, we have only recently begun to define the molecular basis for this heterogeneity. An important unanswered question is whether decreased spectrin results in reduced membrane mechanical stability, and if this reduction in membrane mechanical stability can be related to in vivo surface a...

The spleens from two children and one adult with hereditary spherocytosis were studied in the electron microscope. Stagnation of the erythrocytes within the splenic cords is attributable to their lack of plasticity as evidenced by the absence of bibbed, tailed, or squeezed forms in transit through the walls of the sinuses. In contrast to the sections studied by conventional light microscopy, th...