The three chief physicochemical theories of the oxygen-hemoglobin equilibrium in vogue 40 years ago still influence current thought on the problem. Although the Hill theory lost its fundamental basis some 40 years ago, the famous empiric equation to which it gave rise is still much used, as a useful phenomenological expression, only involving two disposable constants. The Haldane theory, of which a difference in aggregation of oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin was a fundamental feature, lay for many years dormant but has recently had an astonishing reawakening through the work on lamprey hemoglobin, which clearly reveals such differences in aggregation. Lamprey hemoglobin might thus be called a "Haldane type" hemoglobin. Adair's four-stage intermediate compound theory still seems applicable in the case of hemoglobins such as those of sheep, whose tetramer molecules do not tend to dissociate into dimers, and which might therefore be called "Adair type" hemoglobins. Horse and human hemoglobins appear to reveal both "Haldane" and "Adair" behaviour. The effects of pH, temperature, and protein concentration on the oxygen-equilibrium of sheep hemoglobin are summarised, and it is shown that, although the equilibrium curves are often isomorphous over their middle range, intensive work at the top and bottom of the curves reveals considerable differences in the relative effects of these factors on the several equilibrium constants of Adair's four intermediate equations. In the last section an account is given of preliminary experimental attempts to interpret the oxygen- and carbon monoxide—equilibrium curves of whole human blood, under physiological conditions in terms of the Adair intermediate compound hypothesis.
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September 01 1965
The Oxygen Equilibrium of Mammalian Hemoglobin : Some old and new physicochemical studies
F. J. W. Roughton
F. J. W. Roughton
From the Department of Colloid Science, Cambridge University, England
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F. J. W. Roughton
From the Department of Colloid Science, Cambridge University, England
Online ISSN: 1540-7748
Print ISSN: 0022-1295
Copyright © 1965 by The Rockefeller University Press
1965
J Gen Physiol (1965) 49 (1): 105–124.
Citation
F. J. W. Roughton; The Oxygen Equilibrium of Mammalian Hemoglobin : Some old and new physicochemical studies . J Gen Physiol 1 September 1965; 49 (1): 105–124. doi: https://doi.org/10.1085/jgp.49.1.105
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