Bioinformatics analyses of μ-globin. (A) Alignment of the μ-globin mRNA and the ORF-predicted protein with α-globin cluster on chromosome 16p13. Locations (arrowheads) of the Kozak (CGCCAUGC), stop (UGA), and polyA signal (pA) relative to the three μ-globin exons are shown. The protein is annotated according to globin helical domains,⁴⁴  and the residues involved in heme binding and α-β-globin contact are indicated under the gray bar (conserved residues between human α-globin and μ-globin are denoted with colored boxes¹ ). (B) Transcription factor binding site comparison of 200-bp promoter regions of the selected globin genes. Locations of erythroid transcription factor binding motifs are indicated in red, hypoxia-inducible factor motif in green, and general transcription factor binding motifs in blue; other binding motifs are shown as open boxes. AP2 indicates activator protein 2; EKLF, erythroid Kruppel-like factor; GATA1, GATA binding factor 1; HIF, hypoxia-inducible factor; Muscle-INI, muscle initiation factor; MZF1, myeloid zinc finger protein 1; NRSE, neural restrictive silencer element; and SRF, serum response factor.