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It is possible for a person to have both the gene for hemoglobin S (the form associated with sickle cell anemia) and the gene for hemoglobin C; this state is called hemoglobin SC disease, and is generally more severe than hemoglobin C disease, but milder than sickle cell anemia.
In persons with sickle cell disease, high levels of fetal hemoglobin as found in a newborn or as found abnormally in persons with hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin, the HbF causes the sickle cell disease to be less severe. In essence the HbF inhibits polymerization of HbS. A similar mechanism occurs with persons who have sickle cell trait.
Sickle-cell disease was the genetic disorder to be linked to a mutation of a specific protein. Pauling introduced his fundamentally important concept of sickle cell anemia as a genetically transmitted molecular disease. [20] This vein (4) shows the interaction between the malaria sporozoites (6) with sickle cells (3) and regular cells (1).
At the time it was a scientific puzzle that the disease was prevalent even though it killed people before they reached puberty, before they can have children to pass on the lethal gene. [4] He found that the prevalence of sickle-cell trait (heterozygous condition) among people inhabiting coastal areas was higher than 20%. [8]
Sickle Cell Anemia, a Molecular Disease" is a 1949 scientific paper by Linus Pauling, Harvey A. Itano, Seymour J. Singer and Ibert C. Wells that established sickle-cell anemia as a genetic disease in which affected individuals have a different form of the metalloprotein hemoglobin in their blood.
The pathogen that causes the disease spends part of its cycle in the red blood cells and triggers an abnormal drop in oxygen levels in the cell. In carriers, this drop is sufficient to trigger the full sickle-cell reaction, which leads to infected cells being rapidly removed from circulation and strongly limiting the infection's progress.