One of the important transport proteins is hemoglobin, the iron-containing protein of blood, transport oxygen from the lungs to other parts of the body.
What is hemoglobin? Hemoglobin is the protein molecule in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body's tissues and returns carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs.
More than 98% of the oxygen in the blood is bound to hemoglobin molecules. The chemical action of hemoglobin is to combine with oxygen in the lungs to form oxyhemoglobin.
Each hemoglobin molecule is composed of four folded protein chains. Each chain carries a so-called heme group with a ferrous iron ion in its center.
The iron contained in hemoglobin is responsible for the red color of blood.
This heme group is the site of oxygen binding. Each of hemoglobin molecule can therefore bind a maximum of four oxygen molecules.
What mean low or high hemoglobin? Low hemoglobin is referred to as being anemic.
There are many reasons for anemia. Some of the more common reasons are loss of blood (traumatic injury, surgery, bleeding colon cancer), nutritional deficiency (iron, vitamin B12, folate acid), bone marrow problems (replacement of bone marrow by cancer, suppression by chemotherapy drugs, kidney failure), and abnormal hemoglobin (sickle cell anemia).
Minerals deficiencies or imbalance in zinc, copper, vitamin A, B complex, and C cam also lead to anemia in females because of their diets or because of impaired absorption.
Anemia also can occur from poor red blood cell production. Such as when certain nutritional factors are missing, of I the bone marrow ahs been poisoned.
While for higher than normal hemoglobin levels can be seen in people living at high altitudes and also smokers.
Dehydration produces false high hemoglobin which disappears when proper fluid balance is restored.
Hemoglobin is not only fuels the energy mechanism of the cell, but functions to deport waste products and in other transport schemes.
Hemoglobin by binding and releasing nitric oxide, play a key role in regulating important signal molecule.
Nitric oxide is powerful vasodilator and is locally produced by many tissues, especially endothelia tissues, under conditions of increased oxygen demand. It is then quickly eliminated by reversibly binding to hemoglobin.
Hemoglobin as Transport Protein
