Effect of anoxic anoxia on myoglobin concentration in striated muscle.

HE characteristics of myoglobin ifz citro have been demonstrated to be those of a respiratory pigment, but the role of myoglobin ilz vivo has yet to be fully established. The literature to date affords two substantiated concepts with regard to its physiologic muscle as a distinct heme pigment, nature; namely, and that it may that myoglobin exists in striated act as a short-time oxygen store in the cell to tide the muscle over from one contraction to the next (I). The study here reported was undertaken to determine whether or not myoglobin plays a part in the adaptation response of the organism to chronic hypoxia. Specifically, the study was designed to elucidate the physiologic effect of high altitude hypoxia on disclose the myoglobin concentration in specific muscles of albino rats, and to the extent, if any, of parallelism between changes in the myoglobin content of muscles and the increase in hemoglobin content of blood which occurs because of altitude hypoxia.