Carbonic anhydrase in fishes and invertebrates

✍ Scribed by Sobotka, Harry ;Kann, Susan

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1941
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 506 KB
• Volume: 17
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0095-9898
• DOI: 10.1002/jcp.1030170309

✦ Synopsis

Discrepancies between the amount of carbon dioxide eliminated from the lungs in respiration and the rate of dehydration of bicarbonate in vitro led to the discovery of carbonic anhydrase in the blood corpuscles of man and higher animals (Roughton, '35). Recently this enzyme was found to occur in the gastric mucosa of higher animals (Davenport, '40). The enzyme has a dual action, dehydration of bicarbonate and hydration of carbon dioxide, the former operative in respiration, the latter involved in the mechanism of acid secretion in the stomach and perhaps elsewhere. Its distribution in the organs of a number of vertebrate and invertebrate species has been studied by Roughton ('34), Brinkman ('33), Van Goor ('40) and others, with special emphasis on the part it plays in respiration.