Reply to “frameshift Cd 11 (-T) β-thalassemia mutation”

Both TALENs and CRISPR/Cas9 directly target the HBB IVS2–654 (C > T) mutation in β-thalassemia-derived iPSCs

β-Thalassemia is one of the most common genetic blood diseases and is caused by either point mutations or deletions in the β-globin (HBB) gene. The generation of patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and subsequent correction of the disease-causing mutations may be a potential therapeutic strategy for this disease. Due to the low efficiency of typical homologous recombination,...

Gene Therapy for β - Thalassemia

Gene transfer for β-thalassemia requires gene transfer into hematopoietic stem cells using integrating vectors that direct regulated expression of β globin at therapeutic levels. Among integrating vectors, oncoretroviral vectors carrying the human βglobin gene and portions of the locus control region (LCR) have suffered from problems of vector instability, low titers and variable expression. In...

Ineffective Erythropoiesis in β-Thalassemia

In humans, β -thalassemia dyserythropoiesis is characterized by expansion of early erythroid precursors and erythroid progenitors and then ineffective erythropoiesis. This ineffective erythropoiesis is defined as a suboptimal production of mature erythrocytes originating from a proliferating pool of immature erythroblasts. It is characterized by (1) accelerated erythroid differentiation, (2) ma...

Genomic Study in β - Thalassemia

Molecular Diagnostics of β-Thalassemia

A high-quality hemoglobinopathy diagnosis is based on the results of a number of tests including assays for molecular identification of causative mutations. We describe the current diagnostic strategy for the identification of β-thalassemias and hemoglobin (Hb) variants at the International Reference Laboratory for Haemoglobinopathies, Research Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (...