Strategies to increase fetal hemoglobin (HbF) levels can ameliorate symptoms and improve the lives of β-hemoglobinopathy patients. Although most studies have focused on induction of γ-globin gene expression as an approach to induce HbF, we hypothesized that post-transcriptional regulation of HbF plays an underappreciated yet important role in controlling HbF levels. In the present study, we inv...

BACKGROUND Fetal hemoglobin (HbF) levels in different hemoglobin variants in Osogbo, Nigeria, were estimated using two principal methods of estimation using existing information for HbF concentration and distribution of various hemoglobin variants in the area, as well as diagnosed cases of thalassemia. Two hundred and sixty samples collected from HbSS, HbSC, HbAA, HbAS, and HbAC subjects were a...

We outline a method for estimating either HbF or HbA content in single erythrocytes and their precursors. Our method depends on microphotometric assay of darkfield reflectance arising from individual pericellular immunoprecipitates developed with anti-HbF or anti-HbA. When uniform-diameter latex microspheres were used to normalize comparisons between preparations, mean coefficient of variation ...

Colony assays are now available to study erythroid differentiation at three different levels. Mixed hemopoietic colonies represent progeny of pluripotent progenitors (CFU-GEMM). Erythroid bursts and cobnies are derived from early (BFU-E) and late precursors (CFU-E) that are committed towards erythropoiesis. The three different types of colonies were examined for their content of fetal hemoglobi...

AIMS Fetal hemoglobin (HbF) is an established serological indicator of cancer. However, its distribution in tumour tissues is rarely investigated. Therefore, HbF was studied immunohistologically in different cancers characterised by high blood HbF concentrations. METHODS Anti-HbF was immunoaffinity purified and used to study HbF immunohistochemically in the following cancers: germ cell tumour...

In sickle cell disease (SCD), the events originating from hemoglobin S polymerization and intravascular sickling lead to reperfusion injury, hemolysis, decreased nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability, and oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is implicated as a contributing factor to multiple organ damage in SCD. We hypothesize that inhibition of sickling by genetic manipulation to enhance antisicklin...

In the phase I/II pediatric hydroxyurea safety trial (HUG-KIDS), school-aged children with sickle cell anemia receiving hydroxyurea at the maximally tolerated dose (MTD) had variable increases in the percentage of fetal hemoglobin (%HbF). To identify predictors of the HbF response to hydroxyurea therapy, baseline clinical and laboratory values (age, sex, hemoglobin concentration, %HbF, reticulo...

The effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) radiation at the frequency of 940 MHz on the structure and function of human adult and fetal hemoglobin (HbA and HbF) were studied. After extraction and purification of HbA and HbF, the oxygen absorption values for exposed and unexposed HbA and HbF to EMF were compared. The slope of oxygen absorption curve for exposed HbA was increased while that for...

For the treatment of β-thalassemia and sickle cell disease (SCD), pharmacological induction of fetal hemoglobin (HbF) production may be a promising approach. To date, numerous studies have been done on identifying the novel HbF-inducing agents and understanding the underlying mechanism for stimulating the HbF production. In this review, we have summarized the identified HbF-inducing agents by f...

Increased levels of fetal hemoglobin (HbF) can ameliorate the severity of the β-hemoglobin disorders, sickle cell disease (SCD) and β-thalassemia, which are major sources of morbidity and mortality worldwide. As a result, there has been a longstanding interest in developing therapeutic approaches for inducing HbF. For more than 3 decades, the majority of HbF inducers developed were based on emp...