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HEMOGLOBIN

Hemoglobin is an essential protein found in red blood cells that is responsible for carrying oxygen from the lungs to other bodily tissue, and transporting carbon dioxide from the tissue back to the lungs. Ever since the discovery of the relation between its structure and function by Max Perutz in 1978 after almost 20 years of research, hemoglobin has been the most thoroughly understood protein thus far.


Figure 1: The molecule shown is a model of human deoxyhemoglobin A. It was created in RasMol version 2.6 by Roger Sayle. The 3D coordinates were determined from x-ray crystallography by Fermi, G., Perutz, M. F., Shaanan, B., Fourme, R.: The crystal structure of human deoxyhaemoglobin at 2.1 Angstroms resolution. J Mol Biol 175 pp. 159 (1984). Iron is displayed in blue and heme groups in red.

Like other proteins, hemoglobin’s consists of many different structures, which help to define its function. The primary structure of hemoglobin is its amino acid sequence. There are...

Posted by: Helene Hannah

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