Screening of Cord Blood Hemoglobin in Yamaguchi Prefecture

Two thousand cord blood specimens collected from several hospitals in Yamaguchi prefecture were examined electrophoretically for the detection of hemoglobin variants and Hb Bart's. Four of them contained either a variant hemoglobin, an increased amount of Hb Bart's or both. 1) Slow-moving γ chain varients (Hb F Iwata and Hb F Yamaguchi) were detected in two speciments. Both showed an electrophoretic mobility intermediate between Hb F and Hb A_2, and were eluted from DE-52 column in the midpoint between A_2 and Ao. However, Hb F Iwata comprised only 7.9% of the total hemoglobin while Hb F Yamaguchi 23.5%, suggesting that the two variants were not identical…