Quantitation of human globin chain synthesis by cellulose acetate electrophoresis

An update on electrophoretic and chromatographic methods in the diagnosis of hemoglobinopathies

This review primarily deals with methods for separations of hemoglobins. An introduction considers electrophoretic methods as well as those involving isoelectric focusing and chromatography. The main advantages or disadvantages of each procedure are discussed after each technical description. The chromatographic methods are mainly limited to those used in clinical biochemistry. The second section treats the main diagnostic problems typically met with in the field of the hemoglobinopathies and deals successively with the diagnosis of hemoglobinopathies in the adult and the newborn. Numerous variants have been described in the adult, and among them Hb-S and Hb-C variants are the most frequent. Unstable or high oxygen affinity variants of hemoglobin are also considered. Finally, a new strategy for diagnosis is proposed. A special section is devoted to the diagnosis of thalassemia syndromes. The prenatal diagnosis of hemoglobinopathies is also discussed in some detail with a view to preventing the birth of homozygous children. This update ends with a chapter on the interest of the assay of hemoglobins A1c in the pathology of diabetes mellitus.

Application of cellulose acetate electrophoresis to globin chain separation for antenatal diagnosis of beta thalassemia

Application of cellulose acetate electrophoresis to globin chain separation for antenatal diagnosis of beta thalassemia has been studied. A good correlation between an electrophoretic and a chromatographic method on carboxymethylcellulose was found and the diagnoses suggested by both methods were always coincident. The electrophoretic method was also utilized for HbS/beta-thalassemia diagnosis.

A simplified method for studies of haemoglobin biosynthesis

A simplified method for studies of haemoglobin chain biosynthesis using 35S-methionine as the labeled amino acid and Cellogel electrophoresis for globin chain separation is described. This technique simplifies the procedure globin preparation, improves the electrophoretic separation of globin chains and may be applied to samples with normal reticulocyte counts. As many as 20 samples can be prepared simultaneously and 10 samples can be subjected to electrophoretic separation at one time. The method was fund to yield the expected synthetic ratios and to be highly reproducible when applied to normal and abnormal samples from peripheral blood or bone marrow.