Myoglobin properties

Myocardial infarction, 3 710-711 and blood coagulation, 4 81 Myocardial pacemaker cells, 5 81 Myocardium, 5 79—80 Myoglobin, properties of standard, 3 836t Myosin, role in heart excitation and contraction coupling, 5 81 Myrac aldehyde, 2 278 24 485 Myrascone, 24 571... 

The sacroplasmic proteins myoglobin and hemoglobin are responsible for much of the color in meat. Species vary tremendously in the amount of sacroplasmic proteins within skeletal muscle with catde, sheep, pigs, and poultry Hsted in declining order of sarcoplasmic protein content. Fat is also an important component of meat products. The amount of fat in a portion of meat varies depending on the species, anatomy, and state of nutrition of the animal. The properties of processed meat products are greatiy dependent on the properties of the fat included. Certain species, such as sheep, have a relatively higher proportion of saturated fat, whereas other species, such as poultry, have a relatively lower proportion of saturated fat. It is well known that the characteristic davors of meat from different species are in part determined by their fat composition. 

The properties of individual hemoglobins are consequences of their quaternary as well as of their secondary and tertiary structures. The quaternary structure of hemoglobin confers striking additional properties, absent from monomeric myoglobin, which adapts it to its unique biologic roles. The allosteric (Gk alios other, steros space ) properties of hemoglobin provide, in addition, a model for understanding other allosteric proteins (see Chapter 11). 

The myoflbers of muscle are not homogenous but can be categorized into red and white on the basis of ATPase activity ( ). Not only the functional properties but also the composition of the two fiber types varies widely. Red fibers, for example, have considerably more myoglobin and lipid than do white type fibers. 

Table 9.1 gives a comparison of the respective properties of haemoglobin and myoglobin. 

Synthetic models of myoglobin and hemoglobin are complex molecules that mimic the stereochemical properties of the protein active center [24] and have oxygen affinities similar to those measured for the protein [25-27]. The first heme model that reversibly binds oxygen (i.e. the picket-fence-oxygen complex Fe(TpivPP)(l,2-Melm)(02), shown in Fig. 3.3) was obtained in the early nine-teen-seventies by Collman and coworkers (TpivPP = tetrapivalami-nophenyl porphyrin 2-meIm = 2-methylimidazole) [18]. Research on synthetic models of the protein has led to a deeper understand-... 

In the case of myoglobin [113], the only possible solution for X is equal to 2.3 eV. We now postulate an additive property for the reorganization energy, whieh seems reasonable for these systems ... 

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