Hb Lepore Washington-Boston in two Mexican mestizo families.

ABSTRACT

Two Mexican mestizo families with Hb Lepore Washington-Boston are described. One family is from Cordova, in the State of Veracruz, in the East coast of Mexico the proband is a 44-year old asymptomatic male with italian ancestors; the other family is from the city of Durango, State of Durango, in the northwestern part of the country the propositus is a 32-year old pregnant female with French ancestors. In both cases the Hb Lepore was identified by alkaline electrophoresis and characterized by high performance liquid chromatography and PCR with specific probes flanking the deletion frame. The beta-haplotype in both families was +(-)-(-)-(++), the commonest beta-haplotype reported with this mutation. This paper describes the first cases of this entity in Mexico.