Functional analysis of three new alpha-thalassemia deletions involving MCS-R2 reveals the presence of an additional enhancer element in the 5' boundary region.

We report three novel deletions involving the Multispecies Conserved Sequences (MCS) R2, also known as the Major Regulative Element (MRE), in patients showing the α-thalassemia phenotype. The three new rearrangements showed peculiar positions of the breakpoints. 1) The (αα)ES is a telomeric 110 kb deletion ending inside the MCS-R3 element.

Role of nonsense-mediated decay and nonsense-associated altered splicing in the mRNA pattern of two new α-thalassemia mutants.

α-thalassemia is a common disease characterized mainly by deletion mutants. We identified two new α-thalassemia pointform mutants: α1cod22 GGC>GGT Gly>Gly creating a 5' splicing sequence and α1cod23 GAG>TAG Glu>stop. We performed qualitative and semi-quantitative analysis of the mRNA molecules, from carriers' blood, to define the molecular mechanisms giving rise to the thalassemia phenotype.

Identification and molecular characterization of a novel 163 kb deletion: The Italian (ϵγδβ)(0)-thalassemia.

Objective And Importance: To verify the presence of β-thalassemia in subjects showing hematologic phenotype of α-thalassemia, conduct normal molecular sequence analysis of the α-globin genes, and detect the absence of the most frequent α-thalassemia deletions.

Clinical Presentation: A patient from Apulia (Southern Italy) was referred to our institution for the occasional founding of hypochromic polyglobulia and microcytic red blood cells associated with normal levels of Hb A2 and Hb F and normal iron parameters.

Intervention And Technique: The patient has been investigated using Sanger sequencing, multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA), quantitative real-time PCR, restriction analysis, and gap-PCR.