Abstract
Hemoglobin C is one of the second most prevalent hemoglobinopathies worldwide behind sickle cell anemia (HbS). HbC disease (HbCC) produces mild symptoms, but is a life‐threatening disorder if inherited with HbS (HbSC). HbS and HbC are most prevalent in countries underequipped to diagnose its presence through gold standard methods like electrophoresis, HPLC or isoelectric focusing. This study aims to create a simple, inexpensive method to identify the presence of Hemoglobin C using limited resources. The hypothesis is that when blood is incubated in a hypertonic salt solution, Hemoglobin C will crystalize intracellularly and become visible microscopically when stained with New Methylene Blue. The method was optimized by modifying the salt type, salt concentration, incubation time, and incubation temperature. The optimized method incubates RBCs in a 5x Dulbecco's phosphate buffered saline (DPBS) at 37°C for 4 hours. Blood samples with the HbSC genotype yielded between 600–750 HbC crystals for every 1000 RBCs counted. Future studies will include blood samples of AC, CC, SC, and AA genotypes to determine if this method will differentiate genotype.Support or Funding InformationKS is supported by DeNardo Education and Research Foundation FellowshipThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.
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