β-Globin haplotypes are important to establish the ethnic origin and predict the clinical development of sickle cell disease patients (SCD). To determine the chromosomal background of β (S) Tunisian sickle cell patients, in this first study in Tunisia, we have explored four polymorphic regions of β-globin cluster on chromosome 11. It is the 5' region of β-LCR-HS2 site, the intervening sequence ...

BCL11A was the focus of recent studies on its inhibiting effect when bound onto the β-globin cluster in the mechanism of hemoglobin switching and HbF downregulation. We examined a cohort of 10 patients displaying different HbF levels and short deletions within the γβ-δ intergenic region to find a possible correlation with the BCL11A binding site located 5' to the δ-globin gene. Precise characte...

The ability to generate stable high-titer vectors that give rise to high levels of expression of transduced globin genes in erythroid cells is a prerequisite for effective retroviral-mediated globin gene therapy. The human beta-globin gene with its immediate flanking sequences does not contain all the regulatory elements necessary for regulated high-level and position-independent expression in ...

The human α-globin gene cluster is located on chromosome 16 pterp13.3, and is arranged in the order, 5’ζ2-ψζ1-ψα2-ψα1-α2-α1-θ1-3’. Recent reexamination of the ψα2 gene revealed that it is expressed at a very low level, and was renamed as mu-globin gene. The cluster was thought to result from duplication events that occurred more than 300 million years ago. Unequal homologous recombinations are ...

The mouse beta-globin gene locus control region (LCR), located upstream of the beta-globin gene cluster, is essential for the activated transcription of genes in the cluster. The LCR contains multiple binding sites for transactivators, including Maf-recognition elements (MAREs). However, little is known about the specific proteins that bind to these sites or the time at which they bind during e...

Lemur P-related globin genes have been isolated and sequenced. Orthology of pro-simian and human E-, y-, and P-related globin genes was established by dot-matrix analysis. All of these lemur globin genes potentially encode functional P-related globin polypeptides, though precisely when the y-globin gene is expressed remains unknown. The organization of the 18-kb brown lemur P-globin gene cluste...

RNA polymerases can be shared by a particular group of genes in a transcription "factory" in nuclei, where transcription may be coordinated in concert with the distribution of coexpressed genes in higher-eukaryote genomes. Moreover, gene expression can be modulated by regulatory elements working over a long distance. Here, we compared the conformation of a 130-kb chromatin region containing the...

The widespread occurrence of intergenic transcription in eukaryotes is increasingly evident. Intergenic transcription in the beta-globin gene cluster has been described in murine and human cells, and models for a role in gene and chromatin activation have been proposed. In this study, we analyze intergenic transcription and the chromatin state throughout the human beta-globin gene cluster and f...

Although much is known about globin gene activation in erythroid cells, relatively little is known about how these genes are silenced in non-erythroid tissues. Here we show that the human αand β-gobin genes are silenced by fundamentally different mechanisms. The α-genes, which are surrounded by widely expressed genes in a gene dense region of the genome, are silenced very early in development v...