HB UBE-4 (α 116 GLU→ALA): A SECOND INDEPENDENT INSTANCE OF A KOREAN FAMILY DISCOVERED BY HEMOGLOBIN SCREENINGS IN OKAYAMA DISTRICT
An electrophoretically G-like abnormal hemoglobin was found in a Korean patient with liver cirrhosis eight years ago in the Kawasaki Hospital in Okayama and an α chain anomaly was presumed for this hemoglobin at the time of its discovery. However, establishment of its amino acid substitution has not been feasible on account of shortage of test material for further analysis. Recently it happened to us to see the same patient (a 48 year old man) again in the Saiseikai Hospital in Okayama and could get blood samples from him. Conventional chemical analysis of the purified α chain was successfully performed, this time. It was dislosed that the abnormal hemoglobin was identical with Hb Ube-4 (α 116 Glu→Ala), which had been detected from a Korean family residing in Ube by Ohba and his associates in 1978. The kinship between the family of Ohba and our family was carefully investigated, but no blood relatioship was demonstrable between them. Therefore it is thought that this hemoglobin variant is a second independent instance of Hb Ube-4. This abnormal hemoglobin was heat-stable and entirely normal in function.
