Comparison between capillary zone electrophoresis and capillary isoelectric focusing for thalassemia screening in southern China

Abstract

Background: Capillary isoelectric focusing is a type of capillary electrophoresis method newly used for thalassemia screening in China. Although the good performance has been proved by several studies, whether it can best suit the special needs of Chinese patients still requires further investigations. Methods: Comparisons were made between capillary zone electrophoresis method applied on Sebia Minicap and capillary isoelectric focusing method applied on Helena V8 platform E-class on identifying Hb E, Hb CS, Hb H, and Hb Barts for patients from southern China. And mixing studies were used to evaluate the lowest detection limits of these 2 kinds of capillary electrophoresis system. Results: Helena V8 could not make a distinction between peaks of Hb E and peaks of Hb A2 as Sebia Minicap did. All chosen patients with Hb H and/or Hb Barts could be screened out by both 2 systems, but when analyzed by Helena V8, it was hard to distinguish Hb H from Hb Barts sometimes, while Sebia Minicap could make a clear distinction between peaks of Hb H and Hb Barts. Only a part of patients (3 of 8, 37.5%) with Hb CS could be screened out by Helena V8, while all patients could be identified by Sebia Minicap. Sebia Minicap had a lower detection limit for trace peaks than Helena V8 (near to 0.2% vs near to 0.6%). Conclusions: Compared with capillary zone electrophoresis, capillary isoelectric focusing applied on Helena V8 maybe is not the first choice for hemoglobinopathy testing in southern China.