THE EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN HEMOGLOBIN AND OXYGEN IN WHOLE AND HEMOLYZED BLOOD OF THE TAUTOG, WITH A THEORY OF THE HALDANE EFFECT

Abstract

1. A detailed study has been made of the effect of CO2 on the equilibrium between hemoglobin and oxygen in whole and hemolyzed blood of the tautog.2. The study of the O2-dissociation curves of whole blood has shown that the addition of CO2 up to 100 mm. pressure changes the shape of the curves from sigmoid to rectangular hyperbolae with approximately 50 per cent of the hemoglobin inactivated. The intermediate stages in the transformation produce complex dissociation curves which can be described by assuming that fish hemoglobin is made up of different O2-combining components acting independently of each other and combining with different amounts of oxygen at a time.3. Hemolysis renders the hemoglobin less sensitive to CO2 as evidenced by the fact that the O2-dissociation curves move far to the left of those for whole blood; that the O2-combining components which combine with more than one molecule of O2 at a time show greater stability than they do in whole blood as the CO2 tension is raised; and that the...