Effects of oxidative damage of membrane protein thiol groups on erythrocyte membrane viscoelasticities

In three oxidative damaging systems: the diamide‐mercaptoethanol redox modification system (DM), the pyrogallol oxygen free radicals system (PG) and the hypoxanthine‐xanthine oxidase oxygen free radical system (HXO), the effect of erythrocyte membrane oxidative damage on membrane viscoelasticities was investigated with micropipette aspiration method. The experimental results indicated that erythrocyte membrane oxidative damage has a great influence upon the membrane mechanical properties. The oxidative damage led to decrease of contents of membrane protein thiol radical. The scanning of SDS‐PAGE presented that membrane proteins form the higher molecular weight component (HMP) by the cross‐linking of membrane protein thiol radicals that might hinder the conformational change of membrane protein. This might be the reason for the increased membrane elastic modulus and viscous coefficient upon treating erythrocytes with the oxidative damaging systems. A significant negative logarithm regression relation was found between the membrane elastic modulus, \mu, or viscoefficient, \eta , and the contents of membrane protein thiol radicals. These experimental results suggested that thiol radicals oxidative damage reaction due to the superoxides anions ( ^{.} O _{2}^{-} ) may be an important molecular mechanism inducing changes of membrane viscoelasticities or whole cell deformability of erythrocyte under physiological and pathological oxidative stress.