Red blood cells must be flexible to squeeze through tiny capillaries to deliver oxygen. Chemists have now discovered the secret of this flexibility: a 2-D triangular mesh, like a geodesic dome, underlies the membrane, each strut made of the protein spectrin, which is like a spring allowing the mesh and membrane to bend and flex. Super-resolution microscopy revealed fine detail of the mesh and structural components, which are half the size earlier reported.
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