Assessment of the validity of the Adams and Fujita approximation for the higher oligomers of human spectrin

Analysing the self-association behaviour of human erythrocyte spectrin is complicated by a large degree of nonideality. Adams and Fujita [1] proposed that, as a first order approximation, the logarithm of the activity coefficient of the protomer of a self-associating system can be considered to be linearly dependent on the total concentration of the protein, and that the same second virial coefficient could be considered to apply to all species. As a consequence of the Adams and Fujita approximation, the apparent equilibrium constant is equal to the thermodynamic equilibrium constant. The equilibrium concentrations at 30°C of each oligomer spectrin species up to the 14-mer were determined after electrophoresis at low temperature. An apparent equilibrium constant for forming tetramer ( K 2,4) of (1.2 ± 0.1) × 10 6 l/mol was obtained, a value of (9.4 ± 0.7) × 10 4 l/mol was obtained for K 4,6 and for all reactions forming oligomers higher than the hexamer an average approximate value of (2.7 ± 0.4) × 10 5 l/mol was obtained. The apparent equilibrium constants for the formation of all oligomer species of spectrin up to the tetrakaidecamer (14-mer) remain relatively independent of total spectrin concentration, and indicate that within the precision of the measurements a single virial coefficient is sufficient to account for the nonideality of spectrin self-association over the range 2–42 g/l, thus further justifying the use of the Adams and Fujita approximation for this protein over this concentration range.