Why does the mammalian red blood cell have aquaporins?

Aquaporins are now known to mediate the rapid exchange of water across the plasma membranes of diverse cell types. This exchange has been studied and kinetically characterized in red blood cells (erythrocytes; RBC) from many animal species. In recent years, a favoured method has been one based on NMR spectroscopy. Despite knowledge of their molecular structure the physiological raison d’ etre of aquaporins in RBCs is still only speculated upon. Here, we present two hypotheses that account for the fact that the exchange of water is so fast in RBCs. The first is denoted the “oscillating sieve” hypothesis and it posits that known membrane undulations at frequencies up to 30 Hz with displacements up to 0.3 μm are energetically favoured by the high water permeability of the membrane. The second denoted the “water displacement” hypothesis is based on the known rapid exchange across the RBC membrane of ions such as Cl− and HCO3− and solutes such as glucose, all of whose molecular volumes are significantly greater than that of water. The ideas are generalizable to other cell types and organelles.