Multiplexed Quantification of Variant Abundance in the Globin Gene Family: Integrating Saturation Mutagenesis with Cross-Paralog Prediction

Authors

Cai, X., Wang, D., Hu, J., Huang, Y., Guo, W., Shi, Y., Zhou, Y., Xiao, C., Ye, Y., Wang, C., Zhou, W., Xu, X., Jia, X.

Abstract

Widespread genetic testing has expanded variant identification, yet functional characterization remains a bottleneck in genome guided medicine. Here, we present a modified Variant Abundance by Massively Parallel Sequencing (VAMP-seq) platform integrating experimental and computational approaches for high-resolution abundance profiling of protein variants. Utilizing a lentiviral integration system, we systematically assessed the stability effects of 2,696 amino acid substitutions in {zeta}-globin (HBZ) via saturation mutagenesis in human cells, achieving complete variant coverage with high reproducibility. Representative variants showed strong concordance with orthogonal low-throughput validation assays. We further developed a deep learning framework leveraging VAMP-seq derived HBZ data to predict variant abundance across thalassemia-associated globin paralogs (HBA, HBB, and HBG1) not experimentally tractable. Our hybrid framework demonstrates how targeted experimental profiling combined with AI-driven extrapolation can accelerate variant interpretation across protein family members.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 25 Aug 2026.

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