Molecular Biology 5th Edition by Robert Weaver

Exercise 4

You are studying a grave human disease called -thalassemia in which no -globin protein is produced. You find that the -globin gene's coding region in people with this disease is normal, but the mRNA is over a hundred nucleotides longer than normal. You sequence the -globin gene in these people and find a single base change within the gene's first intron. Present a hypothesis to explain the absence of -globin in these patients.