PHYSIOL 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Kidney, Respiratory Acidosis, Red Blood Cell
Document Summary
Po2 and pco2 values is an indication of the amount of gas being dissolved in the solution, not being carried in any other way. This is not the only way gases can be carried. Because the solubility of oxygen is so low, we have to have another way to carry the oxygen. We carry oxygen with it being bounded to a protein called hemoglobin in the red bloods cells. So red blood cells are technically sacs of hemoglobin. In red blood cells, there"s about (cid:883)97ml of oxygen bound within red blood cells. Within the red blood cells, you can bind oxygen to hemoglobin thus allowing more oxygen to be carried. Po2 is representative of the oxygen that is dissolved and relates to how much is bound to hemoglobin (there is a curve that will be discussed later to show this)
