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Long Answer Questions · Q30

Q.Describe the transport of oxygen in human blood, covering the role of haemoglobin, the oxyhaemoglobin dissociation curve, and the factors (partial pressure of O2 and CO2, H+ concentration, temperature) that shift the curve.

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About 97% of the oxygen carried in blood is bound reversibly to haemoglobin, forming oxyhaemoglobin (only about 3% is simply dissolved in plasma). Haemoglobin's four haem groups bind oxygen cooperatively -- binding of one O2 molecule makes it progressively easier for the next to bind -- and this cooperativity produces the characteristic sigmoid (S-shaped) oxyhaemoglobin dissociation curve when percentage saturation is plotted against pO2: saturation rises slowly at low pO2, steeply across an intermediate range, then levels off near full saturation at high pO2. At the high pO2 of alveolar air (~95-104 mm Hg), haemoglobin sits on the curve's flat upper portion and becomes almost fully saturated (~97-98%), so the lungs load haemoglobin with very nearly its maximum capacity. At the lower pO2 typical of respiring tissue (~40 mm Hg), haemoglobin instead sits on the curve's steep middle portion, where saturation falls sharply to roughly 60-70%, unloading a substantial fraction of its oxygen exactly where it is needed. This unloading is further enhanced by the Bohr effect: a rise in local CO2, a rise in H+ concentration (fall in pH), and a rise in temperature -- exactly the conditions generated by actively respiring tissue -- together …

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