2006 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 94-98
Carbon monoxide (CO), a product of incomplete combustion, is odorless toxic gas, and known as a harmful and expelled from ambient air. However, recently it has been known that the “toxic” gas, CO is formed in our body metabolism, and exerts “useful” biological effects such as anti-inflammable, anti-apoptotic, and anti-proliferative. Furthermore, inhalation of low concentration of CO directly, and storage of organs to be grafted in CO dissolved aqueous solution, have been recognized to be therapeutic effect, respectively. In this issue, two types of high sensitive CO analyzer are described, one is for continuous measurement, and the other is a gas chromatography system for a minute sample (less than 1.0mL) and rapid result, with a simple operation of fool-proof. And also, to measure CO formation by expression of heme oxygenase, the pre-treatment process of carboxylhemoglobin (COHb) in blood specimen is shown.
