Function
- Maintains oncotic pressure
- Transports thyroid hormones
- Transports other hormones, in particular, ones that are fat-soluble
- Transports fatty acids ("free" fatty acids) to the liver and to myocytes for utilization of energy
- Transports unconjugated bilirubin
- Transports many drugs; serum albumin levels can affect the half-life of drugs
- Competitively binds calcium ions (Ca2+)
- Buffers pH
- Serum albumin, as a negative acute-phase protein, is down-regulated in inflammatory states. As such, it is not a valid marker of nutritional status; rather, it is a marker in inflammatory states
- Prevents photodegradation of folic acid
Read more about this topic: Human Serum Albumin
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“The function of comedy is to dispel ... unconsciousness by turning the searchlight of the keenest moral and intellectual analysis right on to it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“We are thus able to distinguish thinking as the function which is to a large extent linguistic.”
—Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1934)
“... the function of art is to do more than tell it like it is—it’s to imagine what is possible.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)