Effects of organic co-solvents on the oxygen equilibrium of N-ethylmaleimide-treated human haemoglobin.

We have studied the effects of monohydric alcohols and formamide on the oxygen equilibrium of native and N-ethylmaleimide-treated human haemoglobin. Comparison of the results obtained for the two haemoglobins gives further and compelling evidence in favour of the model, proposed recently by our group, on the role played by the solvent in the conformational equilibria of haemoglobin; moreover the results provide direct functional evidence of the relevance of the electrostatic free energy of salt bridges to the T in equilibrium with R equilibrium of haemoglobin.