Structural and functional effects of hereditary hemolytic anemia-associated point mutations in the alpha spectrin tetramer site

The most common hereditary elliptocytosis (HE) and hereditary pyropoikilocytosis (HPP) mutations are a-spectrin missense mutations in the dimer-tetramer self-association site. In this study, we systematically compared structural and functional properties of the 14 known HE/HPP mutations located in the alpha-spectrin tetramer binding site. All mutant a-spectrin recombinant peptides were well folded, stable structures, with only the R34W mutant exhibiting a slight structural destabilization. In contrast, binding affinities measured by isothermal titration calorimetry were greatly variable, ranging from no detectable binding observed for 124S, R28C, R28H, R28S, and R45S to approximately wild-type binding for R34W and K48R. Binding affinities for the other 7 mutants were reduced by approximately 10- to 100-fold relative to wild-type binding. Some sites, such as R28, were hot spots that were very sensitive to even relatively conservative substitutions, whereas other sites were only moderately perturbed by nonconservative substitutions. The R34W and K48R mutations were particularly intriguing mutations that apparently either destabilize tetramers through mechanisms not probed by the univalent tetramer binding assay or represent polymorphisms rather than the pathogenic mutations responsible for observed clinical symptoms. All alpha 0 HE/HPP mutations studied here appear to exert their destabilizing effects through molecular recognition rather than structural mechanisms.