Pharmacological Induction of FoxO3 is a Potential Treatment for Sickle Cell Disease

Although individuals with sickle cell anemia ostensibly have a monogenetic disease, they exhibit wide variability in the degree of clinical severity. One of the most powerful and reproducible predictors of disease severity is the level of endogenous fetal hemoglobin (HbF), composed of two gamma-globin and two α-globin chains. Expression of HbF is reduced in infancy and little is known about how this regulation is accomplished. A better understanding of gamma-globin regulation could aid in the discovery and design of a specific gamma-globin inducing agent. Taking a genomics approach to this question, Dr. Vivien Sheehan and her team investigated the natural human variation and its correlation with HbF levels to identify novel genes important for gamma-globin regulation. In this webinar, she describes how they performed whole exome sequencing (WES) and used gene-based analysis to find correlations between rare variants and endogenous HbF levels.