Photolyses of carboxy-hemoglobin of bar-headed goose studied by photoacoustic calorimetry

As a specialized species native to high altitude, bar-headed goose can fly annually over an altitude of 9000m, which means that its hemoglobin has a higher oxygen affinity than its lowland relatives, such as goose and chicken. To study the mechanism of the phenomena, laser ultrasonic calorimetry is used to study dynamic processes associated with photolyses of carboxy hemoglobin (HbCO), including the enthalpy and conformational volume changes, of bar-headed goose and its lowland relatives. Considering the time scales of the reaction lifetimes in the photolyses processes of HbCO, two kinds of piezoelectric transducers, a PVDF film and a PZT ceramic, are used as acoustic signal detectors. For evaluating the relative enthalpy change and the relative conformational volume change in the process, the quantum yield of the photolysis must be taken into account, which has been measured by pump-probe technique. The results show that the enthalpy and conformational volume changes of bar-headed goose are obviously sma...