Question

What is chloride shift? Explain fully the transport mechanism of carbon dioxide and oxygen in respiration.

Answer 1

Chloride shift also understood as the Hamburger phenomenon or lineas phenomenon named because ofHartogJakob Hamburger. It is a process that takes place in a cardiovascular system and stands for exchange of bicarbonate and chloride through the membrane of red blood cells.

Complete Answer:
- Chloride shift is a process which takes place in the body of the humans through the circulation of oxygen and carbon dioxide through the blood.
- The carbon dioxide gas then taken by the red blood cells, mix in water in the red blood cells and it is converted into ${H_2}C{O_3}$​, by the enzyme carbonic anhydrase. ${H_2}C{O_3}$ breaks into bicarbonate ions and hydrogen ions.
- And exchange of bicarbonate and the chloride ions across red blood cells membrane.
- For maintaining the pH of the blood chloride ions move inside the cell while on the hand bicarbonate is moving outside from red blood cells in the plasma.
- Carbon dioxide levels decrease as the blood passes by the lungs and also bicarbonate levels decrease in the serum because the equilibrium shifts to replace $C{O_2}$​ and bicarbonate comes outside.
- To maintain the balance after charges exit the cell, a chloride anion from the plasma comes inside the red blood cell and an opposite process occurs in the lungs when carbon dioxide is removed from the blood. The change of bicarbonate for chloride in red blood cells and bicarbonate came out from the blood and the rate of gas exchange increased.

Note: This chloride shift is also responsible for regulating the affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen through the chloride ion interaction with allosteric effector.