[Erythrocytosis due to a high-affinity hemoglobulin: mutant hemoglobin Saint-Jacques beta 140 (H18) Ala----Thr with a change in the 2,3-diphosphoglycerate binding site].

All the high oxygen affinity variants have substitutions in regions that are crucial to hemoglobin function: mainly the alpha 1 beta 2 interface, the C-terminal end of the beta chain and the aminoacid residues involved in the 2,3 disphophoglycerate (2,3 DPG) binding site. In this report we describe a new variant with familial erythrocytosis: hemoglobin Saint-Jacques beta 140 (H18) Ala----Thr, whose main abnormality is a defect in organic phosphate binding in the central cavity between to two beta chains. This variant could not be separated from hemoglobin A by standard electrophoretic methods or by isoelectric focusing. The abnormal peptide was isolated by reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography and the structural modification determined by manual sequencing micro-method. Functional studies on red blood cells as well as on stripped lysate showed increased oxygen affinity, normal Bohr effect, decreased heme-heme interaction and loss of the 2,3 DPG regulatory effect.