Erythroid dematin is a major component of red blood cell junctional complexes that link the spectrin±actin cytoskel-eton to the overlying plasma membrane. Transcripts of dematinarewidelydistributed includinghumanbrain, heart, lung, skeletalmuscle, , dematinbinds and bundles actin ®laments in a phosphorylation-dependent manner. The primary structure of dematin consists of a C-terminal domain homologous to theÔheadpieceÕ domain of villin, an actin-binding protein of the brush border cyto-skeleton. .
