At what point does the haemoglobin change from fetal to adult? Does the infant reach a certain age and something in the body stops synthesising the 2 gamma chains in place of 2 beta chains? And how do the 2 gamma chains create a higher affinity for oxygen? Are there certain stronger bonds created?
In adult the heamoglobin is HbA consisting of (two alpha subunits and two beta subunits)and in the fetal stage it is HbF (consisting of two alpha and two gamma subunits ).The shift from the gamma to beta subunits occurs during the 6 months of fetal life
When the switch there is a change in transcription which synthesis the gamma subunits which is induced by certain repressor molecules leading to a decline in HbF levels and the levels of oxygen affinity declines as beta subunits are replaced with gamma.
The adult Hb contains more positive charge than the fetal gamma Hb which attracts more positively charged 2,3 biphosphoglyceric acid that decreases the oxygen affinity .Hence the fetal Hb has more oxygen affinity.
Get Answers For Free
Most questions answered within 1 hours.