Letter in response to:Pietro Caironi and Luciano Gattinoni “The clinical use of albumin: the point of view of a specialist in intensive care” (Blood Transfus. 2009 October; 7(4): 259-67 - doi: 10.2450/2009.0002-09)
While not disagreeing with Caironi's and Gattinoni's general conclusions in their recent paper1 and actually very much appreciating their detailed review of albumin physiology, we should like to state one basic point of disagreement.Referring to albumin's imidazole residues the authors write "In fact, having a pH of about 6.75, the residues may both give up or accept H+ from the environment depending on the surrounding pH, thereby acting as a buffer molecule". Apart from the fact that 6.75 represents the pK and not the pH, in our opinion albumin is not a buffer under physiological conditions (…). |