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Brief Communication

Nature Genetics 39, 1197–1199 (1 October 2007) | doi:10.1038/ng2108

A QTL influencing F cell production maps to a gene encoding a zinc-finger protein on chromosome 2p15

Stephan Menzel , Chad Garner , Ivo Gut , Fumihiko Matsuda , Masao Yamaguchi , Simon Heath , Mario Foglio , Diana Zelenika , Anne Boland , Helen Rooks , Steve Best , Tim D Spector , Martin Farrall , Mark Lathrop & Swee Lay Thein

F cells measure the presence of fetal hemoglobin, a heritable quantitative trait in adults that accounts for substantial phenotypic diversity of sickle cell disease and β thalassemia. We applied a genome-wide association mapping strategy to individuals with contrasting extreme trait values and mapped a new F cell quantitative trait locus to BCL11A, which encodes a zinc-finger protein, on chromosome 2p15.