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What is the bohr effect and chloride shift?

Can someone explain these two in detail? (good response will get rep)

Thank you.

well as far as the edexcel syllabus goes you only need to know about the bohr effect....dunno what the chloride shift is. The bohr effect is when there is alot of carbon dioxide around, which reduces the ability of Hb (haemoglobin) to combine with oxygen. The bohr effect occurs in the capillaries in a respiring tissue, because the respiring tissue produce carbon dioxide. Some of the carbon dioxide dissolves in the blood plasma and diffuses into the erythrocytes, where it forms carbonic acid. The hydrogen ions from this acid combine with Hb molecules causing them to "drop" even more of their oxygen than they normally would. So if you look at the oxygen dissociation curve for Hb where carbon dioxide concentrations are high, you can see that the Hb carries less oxygen that it would if carbon dioxide concentration was low. THe presence of co2 reduces the affinity of Hb for oxygen. Which is useful because it means the respiring tissues get even more oxygen from Hb than they would if co2 wasnt there. So in essence the bohr effect is a good thing :smile:

Reply 2

iceman_jondoe

I seemed to have found your answer to chloride shift at this website : http://www.gpnotebook.co.uk/cache/-476446680.htm (googled it)

Reply 3

Stranded

iceman_jondoe

I seemed to have found your answer to chloride shift at this website : http://www.gpnotebook.co.uk/cache/-476446680.htm (googled it)

^^Cool thanks

Reply 4

Revenged

Dev.420

Can someone explain these two in detail? (good response will get rep)

Thank you.

CO2 diffuses into red blood cells and combines with water...

H20 + CO2 <=> H2CO3 <=> H+ + HCO3-

Increased CO2, equilibrium above shifts to the right and so more HCO3- is produced...

The reaction of CO2 combining with water occurs in red blood cells as they contain the enzyme carbonic anhydrase, which catalyses the reaction...

HCO3- ions then move out of red blood cells into the plasma and Cl- moves into the cells in order to maintain charge..."chlorine shift"

At the lungs, HCO3- is converted back to CO2 and is excreted...