Objective(s): The use of antisense oligonucleotides (AOs) to restore normal splicing by blocking the recognition of aberrant splice sites by the spliceosome represents an innovative means of potentially controlling certain inherited disorders affected by aberrant splicing. Selection of the appropriate target site is essential in the success of an AO therapy. In this study, in search for a splic...

Previous studies have demonstrated that sickle cell disease (SCD) can be corrected in mouse models by transduction of hematopoietic stem cells with lentiviral vectors containing antisickling globin genes followed by transplantation of these cells into syngeneic recipients. Although self-inactivating (SIN) lentiviral vectors with or without insulator elements should provide a safe and effective ...

At position 0.5 kb upstream to the &globin gene lies a repeated purine-pyrimidine sequence (AT),(T),, which exhibits a great variation in length and configuration.’ The different specific patterns of this sequence are in strict linkage disequilibrium with the 0-globin haplotype. The (AT)yT5 motif has been identified several years ago in a carrier of silent 0-thalassemia of Albanian descent.’ La...

Current methods that assay hemoglobin beta-globin chain variants can have limited clinical sensitivity when applied techniques identify only a predefined panel of mutations. Even sequence-based assays may be limited depending on which gene regions are investigated. We sought to develop a clinically practical yet inclusive molecular assay to identify beta-globin mutations in multicultural popula...

While the precipitation of unstable variant beta-globin chains has been implicated as a major pathogenic mechanism in dominantly inherited beta thalassemia, their instability and presence in intra-erythroblastic inclusions have not been conclusively shown. We report the investigation of two cases of dominantly inherited beta thalassemia due to heterozygosity for the beta-codon 121 G-T mutation....

Translational stop mutations of the human beta-globin gene cause a reduction of cytoplasmic mRNA accumulation in thalassemia patients and in transfection models. The exact mechanism underlying this phenomenon has remained enigmatic but is known to be post-transcriptional. We have used transfected HeLa cells to study the expression of beta-globin mRNAs with nonsense or frameshift mutations withi...

Previous studies have demonstrated that sickle cell disease (SCD) can be corrected in mouse models by transduction of hematopoietic stem cells with lentiviral vectors containing antisickling globin genes followed by transplantation of these cells into syngeneic recipients. Although self-inactivating (SIN) lentiviral vectors with or without insulator elements should provide a safe and effective ...

The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of beta S-globin gene (β(S) globin) haplotypes and alpha thalassemia with 3.7 kb deletion (-α(3.7kb) thalassemia) in the northwest region of Paraná state, and to investigate the oxidative and clinical-hematological profile of β(S) globin carriers in this population. Of the 77 samples analyzed, 17 were Hb SS, 30 were Hb AS and 30 were Hb AA. T...

Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) represents a phylogenetically widely conserved splicing- and translation-dependent mechanism that eliminates transcripts with premature translation stop codons and suppresses the accumulation of C-terminally truncated peptides. Elimination of frameshifted transcripts that result from faulty splicing may be an important function of NMD. To test this hypothesis ...