α 0 -Thalassemia Caused by a Novel α-Globin Gene Cluster Deletion (– LB ) Found in a Chinese Family

We report a novel large α-globin gene cluster deletion in a Chinese family from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Regionfor the first time. The proband was a 20-year-old male who presented with microcytic hypochromatosis. Routine genetic analysis showed none of the common mutations in theα-globin and β-globin genes. Multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) of the α-globin chain revealed there was a large deletion, which removed the entire