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  Fm: Don Ward, inet address: D.Ward@dk*.de*

On Sat, 23 Jul 1994, Scot Anderson wrote:

I'm not sure who wrote this.

> >You have hit the nail on the head, the binding with hemoglobin is
> >competitive between oxgyen and carbon monoxide, and thus as long
> >as the relationship between the partial pressure of monoxide and
> >oxide remains constant, the amount of hemoglobin bound with monoxide
> >will remain constant (at least, according to everything I know, and
> >Bill Hamilton has also been heard to make this same point about
> >monoxide).
This is not what I have heard. 

> Hm. Interesting.  But let's think about this a little further.
> 
> I would establish the following as known truth:

> 2) each binding site will accept a single molecule, O2 or CO.

> 4) CO binding is so thermodynamically favorable that binding is, 
> practically speaking, permanent, essentially removing the bound 
> hemo site from the pool of available transport.

What I have heard says that this also means that if there is a CO
molecule, it will get a site. That means that the number of molecules
is the controling factor in C0 binding, and that does change with 
incressing pressure. If you get too much CO in your blood, all the
hemoglobin is transporting CO around and around in your body. No O2
is being transported by the hemoglobin. At high pressure, O2 is 
carried in supension in the blood, so you still get O2 where you need
it. When the pressure is lower befor enough hemoglobin cells have been
replaced by new ones that are not bound to CO, you die. The partial
pressure of O2, N2, CO2 or CO has no influence on the binding. The
number of CO molecules is the only thing that has any effect on the
binding of CO to hemoglobin. Once a binding point has a CO molecule
it is efectively removed from the pool of possable binding points.
You can breath the exaust from a compressor, if you let it get in
the tank you can die. The partial pressures reman the same, the number
of molecules in your lungs/blood does not.

don

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