Thermodynamic aspects of the linkage between binding of chloride and oxygen to human hemoglobin

Oxygen isotherms of human hemoglobin measured in distilled water and in solutions of sodium chloride in the concentration range from 0.02 to 3.0 M indicate that the oxygen affinity decreases up to about 1 M salt and then begins to increase. The isotherms obtained in the range from 0.02 to 0.6 M sodium chloride, at 37 degrees and pH 7.4, have been analyzed in terms of changes in Gibbs free energy of heme ligation, resulting from the differential interaction between the chloride ion and the two forms of hemoglobin. The maximal theoretical change in Gibbs free energy that chloride ion can exert on the oxygen binding of hemoglobin amounts to 4.9 +/- 0.2 kcal/mol (21 +/- 0.8 kJ/mol) of hemoglobin tetramer. A plot of the logarithm of oxygen concentration at half saturation versus the logarithm of the chloride concentration has a slope of 0.40, suggesting 1.6 apparent chloride sites per hemoglobin tetramer. Because the interaction between chloride and hemoglobin is dependent on pH, the apparent thermodynamic linkage between chloride and oxygen binding will also include the salt dependence of the Bohr effect at pH 7.4. The fractional change in Gibbs free energy, measured as a function of the chloride concentration, can be approximated by the binding isotherm between a protein and a ligand, using an association constant of 11 M(-1). Thus, if the number of oxygen-linked chloride sites is more than one per hemoglobin tetramer, these sites must be considered independent.