this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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It's sensitive to pH, so it absorbs oxygen more readily in the lungs, and releases it slightly more near tissues that need it, as they have co2 which slightly acidifies the blood in solution (h2co3).
It's effective and well tuned for our biology, it doesn't bond strongly, and is well suited for the air-blood interface, unlike others that often favor water-blood or water-the fluid worms use instead.
Thank you. Clear, easily understood explanations of questions I always wondered. ๐๐ผ
CO2 and H2CO3 (apparently I don't know how to do subscript on here.
Yeah, I didn't do the carbonic acid, then there's the increased bicarb buffering around the pleura, couple other facts.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539815/
Thus the acidity causes o2 release. Temperature (lungs tend to be very cold in the body) is important too.
It's amazing how subtly it works to gently increase efficiency where we need it. Otherwise it's just a very weak oxygen bond (which is hard enough given oxygen is extremely non-polar and all you have are the valence pairs. edit: This lead me to wonder how the fuck it even bonded effectively
https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(19)63845-7/fulltext
Wow, I'm impressed, they're using spin-coupling which is a pretty dicey effect.
That's some fucking crazy ass engineering by nature, A weak, highly reversible bond with the molecule keyed to both pH and thermal triggers. That was a fun rabbit hole.
Thanks so much for the deep dive. I love learning from such concise facts.
To add, also @Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com : There is only one known species of vertebrates without hemoglobin. The Crocodile Icefish, it once had it in its blood and lost some genes to synthesize it. The debate about why is still ongoing, with the currently favored theory that they adapted to a high oxygen and low iron environment.
Thanks for the callout and link! ๐๐ฝ
Nature is fascinating.