The human red blood cell membrane skeleton is a network of roughly 33,000 protein hexagons that looks like a microscopic geodesic dome.
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a team of UCSD researchers describe a mathematical model that explains how a mesh-like protein skeleton gives a healthy human red blood cell both its rubbery ability to stretch without breaking, and a potential mechanism to facilitate diffusion of oxygen across its membrane. “Red cells are one of the few kinds of cells in the body with no nucleus and only a thin layer of protein skeleton under their membrane: they are living bags of hemoglobin,” said Amy Sung, a professor of bioengineering at UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering