Capillary electrophoresis of hemoglobin

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) has been used in a variety of in-house capillary isoelectric focusing (CIEF) and capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) assays for the detection of hemoglobin (Hb) variants and the quantitation of HbA2 and HbF. A commercial kit has also been produced for the analysis of hemoglobin variants and thalassemia screening. Though CE methods have been shown to be able to detect many variants, final identification of the variant needs specialized testing such as DNA technology. Over the past 2 years, many instruments that had been used for these hemoglobin variant screening and thalassemia assays have been withdrawn from sale. Although CE HbA1c analysis is available, it cannot compete in turnaround time or cost with automated HPLC commercial instruments that give accurate HbA1c results in 3 or 4 minutes. Hence we do not anticipate a bright future for the analysis of hemoglobin by CE.