title: Distributions of hemoglobins A and S among erythrocytes of heterozygotes.
abstract: The recently developed capability to separate and quantify each of several proteins concurrently in single red cells presents an opportunity to test for biological variations in intercellular distribution of a protein as well as the extent of correlation between quantities of gene products derived from a single cell genome. In this preliminary study, erythrocytes from 30 sickle trait subjects were subjected to single cell electrophoresis and the resulting hemoglobin electropherograms were scanned by a recording densitometer. There was found to be heterogeneity among subjects in the form of the intercellular distribution of Hb S fraction, as tested by g statistics for skewness and kurtosis. Additionally, in all subjects there was statistically significant correlation between relative quantities of cellular Hb A and Hb S as measured concurrently in the same cell. These observations provide a basis for future research on the hypothesis that the form of the distribution of hemoglobin among erythrocytes is a heritable variable.
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D003720:Densitometry; D004586:Electrophoresis; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000032:analysis*; D006441:Hemoglobin A / Q000032:analysis*; D006451:Hemoglobin, Sickle / Q000032:analysis*; D006579:Heterozygote; D006801:Humans; D007425:Intracellular Membranes / Q000032:analysis; D008403:Mass Screening; D012805:Sickle Cell Trait / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis; D014018:Tissue Distribution
chemical_list: D006451:Hemoglobin, Sickle; D006441:Hemoglobin A