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An example of the importance of protein quaternary structure comes from examination of the biological activity of hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is the protein in blood that is responsible for transporting oxygen from the lungs to the muscles (as well as transporting carbon dioxide in the opposite direction). The active unit of hemoglobin is a heterotetramer, composed of two subunits and two subunits. Each of these four subunits contains a heme cofactor (see Section 3.7) that is capable of binding a molecule of oxygen. The affinity of the heme for oxygen depends on the quaternary structure of the protein and on the state of oxygen binding of the heme groups in the other three subunits (a property known as cooperativity). Because of the cooperativity of oxygen binding to the hemes, hemoglobin molecules almost always have all four heme sites bound to oxygen (the oxy form) or all four heme sites free of oxygen (the deoxy form); intermediate forms with one, two, or three oxygen molecules bound are almost never observed.
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