The First Observation of an Abnormal Haemoglobin in a Jewish Family: Haemoglobin Beilinson

Bothβ-thalassaemia and α-thalassaemia have been described in Oriental Jews (Matoth, Shamir and Freundlich, 1955; Ramot, Sheba, Fisher, Ager and Lehmann, 1959) and an abnormal methaemoglobin has been found by Mani, Kende and Ramot (1962) in a Polish Jewish family. No other abnormal adult haemoglobin has, however, yet been found in either Oriental or Western Jews. We should like to report a haemoglobin variant in an Ashkenazi (Western-Jewish) family that came to Israel from Poland. In addition to its being an unusual observation in Jews, the variant itself has not been observed before. It resembles in its electrophoretic behaviour the haemoglobin L described in Indians by Ager and Lehmann (1957), but differs from L in its chromatographic properties and in the location of the mutational change within the globin moiety.