Parameter dependence of myoglobin-facilitated transport of oxygen in the presence of membranes (Q914578)

Some physicochemical entities involved in the facilitated transport of oxygen along a transport path \(z_ 1\leq z\leq z_ n\) with membranes impermeable to myoglobin at \(z_ i\), \(i=1,...,n\), were identified in an earlier paper [ibid. 92, 209-231 (1989; Zbl 0675.92010)]. These entities are the partition between the oxygen and oxymyoglobin flows, the flow transfers taking place near a membrane, and the membrane resistance. Expressions for these entities were obtained that explicitly involve the parameters of the system. In this paper, for the case of prescribed boundary oxygen concentrations \(x^ 1\) and \(x_ n\), these expressions are incorporated into (i) an explicit representation for the facilitated transport value in terms of the difference, \(E(x^ 1)-E(x_ n)\), between the boundary oxymyoglobin equilibrium values and the sum, \(\Gamma\), of the membrane resistances, and (ii) a representation for the distribution of the membrane oxygen concentrations \(x_ i\) at \(z_ i\), \(i=2,...,n-1\). This makes it possible to analyze the manner in which the facilitated transport depends on the parameters. For a physiological range of parameter values, the faclitated transport was found to increase as either the oxygen-myoglobin association rate constant \(k'\), the dissociation rate constant k, the oxygen diffusion coefficient, or the oxymyoglobin diffusion coefficient increases. Thus, the facilitated transport does not depend directly on ratios of chemical and diffusion coefficients. Although the increase in the oxygen diffusion coefficient does not per se affect the chemical conductance, it diminishes the membrane resistance through an interface feature, with a resulting increase in the facilitated transport.