| Unit
1 - Fish
Blood Constituents
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| Erythrocytes - Function | ||
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| Erythrocytes function in the transport of oxygen and, to a much lesser degree, carbon dioxide. Molecular oxygen is carried on molecules of haemoglobin in the cells. Haemoglobin is a large protein which (except in the primitive jawless fishes) consists of four smaller protein subunits, two alpha chains and two beta chains, each of which carries one molecule of oxygen. These peptides are bound together by four haeme rings, and an iron atom is bound in the centre of each haeme ring. | ||
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