Page 65 - The Miracle of the Blood and Heart

Blood: The Incomparable
Liquid of Life

molecule coming into possession of this particular amino acid
950
sequence is 1 in 10 —in other words, impossible!
Murray Eden from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) comments about this subject:
Hemoglobin has two chains, called alpha and beta. A minimum of
120 mutations would be required to convert alpha to beta. At least
34 of those changes require changeovers in two or three nucleotides.
Yet, if a single nucleotide change occurs through mutation, the

Hemoglobin molecule

As in all other biochemical struc-
tures, the complex structure of
hemoglobin is too sensitively bal-
anced to tolerate any randomly
occurring mutation. Any accidental
chemical change in its structure
would immediately turn this valu-
able protein into a functionless
assortment of amino acids.

amino acid sequence of the hemoglobin molecule

Amino acid 1 Amino acid 2 Amino acid 3 Amino acid 4 Amino acid 5 Amino acid 6

Adnan
Oktar

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