Hemoglobin (Hb) is a vital protein for human beings (Fig. 1). It carries the oxygen to the different tissues and organs. This hemoglobin comes in three major types and one them is expressed predominantly in each period; Embryonic Hb, which is produced in the early embryonic period, Fetal Hb (HbF) which is produced late during pregnancy when embryonic Hb starts to switch off, and finally Adult Hb, which is expressed just before fetus are delivered. Genetics disorders such as sickle cell anemia and β-thalassemia are examples of diseases that affect only the adult hemoglobin. Therefore, understanding the mechanism of Hb switching is very important to reverse the switching and treat these diseases.

The significance of this study comes from its aim to uncover parts of the molecular basis of hemoglobin switching. This study build upon previous finding that Kruppel-like transcription factor 1 (KLF1) is a central protein in many processes related to hemoglobin metabolism and red blood cell development. It was shown that KLF1 regulates the expression of many repressor proteins such as BCL11A. ZBTB7A is another repressor protein that works similar to BCL11A in repressing the production of HbF. Unlike BCL11A, not much is known about the regulation of ZBTB7A expression. Understanding such mechanism of regulation is important as an alternative pathway for treatment strategies of Sickle cell anemia and β-thalassemia

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Experiments
  • Cross-linking
  • Cell Lysis and DNA fragmentation
  • Chromatin Immunoprecipitation and elution
  • Cross-link reversal and DNA purification
  • Preparation of DNA for Sequencing
  • Next generation Sequencing
• Implications
  • KLF1 peaks
  • Distance of promoter peaks
  • Analysis of KLF1 binding to gene body of ZBTB7A