Isolation of human haemoglobin variants with altered Bohr effect. Application to haemoglobin Rainier.

Isoelectric focusing on polyacrylamide gel in the absence of haem ligands represents a useful, convenient and rapid procedure to isolate silent Hb variants in their native forms, provided that they exhibit an abnormal Bohr effect. The amount of material which is eluted is sufficient for both a limited functional study and a structural determination using microscale high-performance liquid chromatography. This is exemplified by the isolation and the study of Hb Rainier.