Hereditary Spherocytosis - Pathophysiology

Pathophysiology

Hereditary spherocytosis is an autosomal dominant or recessive trait, most commonly (though not exclusively) found in Northern European and Japanese families, although an estimated 25% of cases are due to spontaneous mutations. A patient has a 50% chance of passing the mutation onto each of his/her offspring.

Hereditary spherocytosis is caused by a variety of molecular defects in the genes that code for spectrin (alpha and beta), ankyrin, band 3 protein, protein 4.2, and other erythrocyte membrane proteins:

These proteins are necessary to maintain the normal shape of an erythrocyte, which is a biconcave disk. The integrating protein that is most commonly defective is ankyrin which is responsible for incorporation and binding of spectrin, thus in its dysfunction cytoskeletal instabilities ensue. As the spleen normally targets abnormally shaped red cells (which are typically older), it also destroys spherocytes. In the spleen, the passage from the cords of Billroth into the sinusoids may be seen as a bottleneck, where erythrocytes need to be flexible in order to pass through. In hereditary spherocytosis, erythrocytes fail to pass through and get phagocytosed, causing extravascular hemolysis.