Abnormal hemoglobin anti-Lepore Hong Kong compound with β0-thalassemia ameliorate thalassemia severity when co-inherited with α-thalassemia

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 14; no. 1; pp. 6682 - 9
• Main Authors: Bao, Xiuqin, Wang, Jicheng, Qin, Danqing, Yao, Cuize, Liang, Jie, Liang, Kailing, Du, Li
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 20.03.2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/208; 692/308; Anti-Lepore Hong Kong; Anti-Lepore Hong Kong compounded with β0-thalassemia and α-thalassemia; Blood diseases; Hemoglobin; Heterozygotes; Humanities and Social Sciences; Increased HbA2; Meiosis; mRNA; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Single molecular real time sequencing; Thalassemia; Hong Kong China; China; Anti-Lepore Hong Kong; Increased HbA2; thalassemia and α-thalassemia; Single molecular real time sequencing; Anti-Lepore Hong Kong compounded with β
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-56921-6

Abnormal hemoglobin anti-Lepore Hong Kong is a rare βδ fusion variants resulting from non-homologous crossover during meiosis. Anti-Lepore Hong Kong is known to consistently exhibit significantly increased level of HbA2. In this study, we used multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) and single molecular real-time (SMRT) sequencing, as well as Sanger sequencing, to identify variants in five unrelated families with abnormal elevated HbA2 level. All probands in these five families were found to be heterozygous for anti-Lepore Hong Kong. Among them, two families showed co-occurrence of β 0 -thalassemia and α-thalassemia (– SEA / or α CS α/). Heterozygotes for anti-Lepore Hong Kong displayed an average HbA2 level of 17.7% and behaved normal. However, when combined with β 0 -thalassemia and α-thalassemia, the probands exhibited higher HbA2 level (30.2–40.8%) and behaved with β-thalassemia trait. Furthermore, determination of the α/β-mRNA ratio revealed a slight downregulation of β-globin, similar to that of β-thalassemia minor. Our study is the first to identify compound heterozygotes for anti-Lepore Hong Kong, β 0 -thalassemia and α-thalassemia, provide valuable information for prenatal counseling.