Calculated intra- and extracellular PO2 gradients in heavily working red muscle.

A recently introduced three-dimensional analytical model of O2 diffusion to heavily working muscle that considers myoglobin-facilitated O2 diffusion inside the muscle fiber and a carrier-free layer separating erythrocytes and fiber is able to furnish the following new insights in O2 supply to red muscle at high performance. 1) Fiber PO2 profiles are essentially flat, and the major PO2 gradients are located in the perierythrocytic region, in good agreement with experimental findings [T. E. J. Gayeski and C. R. Honig, Am. J. Physiol. 251 (Heart Circ. Physiol. 20): H789-H799, 1986]. No specialized anatomical pericapillary barrier structure is required to explain these results. 2) A functional barrier to O2 diffusion has been identified that consists of the carrier-free layer and of the pericapillary muscle fiber portions. There are three reasons that make these structures act as a diffusion barrier: a "geometric reason," a "diffusivity-related reason," and a "myoglobin-related reason." 3) PO2 fields of adjacent red blood cells (RBCs) practically do not interact. 4) Small scale heterogeneities in capillary and RBC spacing are compensated for by high myoglobin-facilitated fiber diffusivity. Limiting factor for diffusional O2 transport is the number of RBCs present on the fiber surface.