Study of hemoglobin synthesis by affinity chromatography on Sepharose haptoglobin.

An affinity chromatography system, using haptoglobin bound covalently to Sepharose 4B, has been developed to purify human hemoglobin from soluble non-heme proteins. Agarose-haptoglobin specifically binds hemoglobin. Globin chains were eluted from the agarose-haptoglobin after removal of the heme. This method has allowed accurate measurements of globin chain synthesis in blood and bone marrow samples from adults and in culture of early erythroid precursors present in adult blood or bone marrow.