ScienceDaily (June 30, 2009) — An aquatic lifestyle imposes serious demands for the organism, and this is true even for the tiniest molecules that form our body. When the ancestors of present marine mammals initiated their return to the oceans, their physiology had to adapt radically to the new medium. Dr. Michael Berenbrink and his colleagues at Liverpool University have been studying how myoglobin, the molecule responsible for delivering oxygen to the muscles during locomotion, has been modified in seals and whales to help them cope with the needs of a life at sea.
Harbor seal swimming. (Credit: iStockphoto/Andy Raatz)
The researchers have found evidence indicating that the net positive charge of this protein is increased in marine mammals compared with terrestrial relatives, and they have speculated that this may help improving the solubility of the molecule. This is important as divers may contain 10 times more myoglobin in their muscles than terrestrial animals. The team has also found a conspicuous increase of the amino acid histidine in the myoglobin of strong divers, which may allow the animal to deal better with the accumulation of lactic acid that is frequent during long dives (the same build up is the cause of the cramps we sometimes get during strenuous exercise).
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