Journal of Clinical Medicine Research

In this paper, we aimed to introduce a new method in detecting transient hemoglobin (Hb) hybrids. First, electrophoretic pure HbA, HbA2, HbF and HbA1 were prepared by starch–agar mixed gel, and then cross electrophoresis was performed on 2% starch–agar mixed gel. The slow-moving HbA2 samples were added in the front long slots and the fast-moving HbA, HbF and HbA1 samples were added in the back short slots of the gel. These two rows of slots are all located on the cathode side of the gel and about 1 cm away from each other. After electrophoresis, which was performed at 5V/cm for about 4 h, the gel was stained with Ponceau Red and Benzidine. The results showed that when fast-moving HbA and HbF crossed slow-moving HbA2, the band shape of HbA2 was deformed as a valley, however when fast-moving HbA1 crossed slow-moving HbA2, the band shape of HbA2 was not deformed. This finding demonstrates that HbA and HbF could form transient hybrid with HbA2 during cross electrophoresis; however HbA1 could not form any hybrid with HbA2 because of its chemical modification of Hb subunits.