Mononuclear cells from patients with β-Thal (#2, 3, 5, 6, 8&9) were cultured into BFU-E derived colonies in absence (control) or presence (drug) of 150 μM butyrate or 100μM hemin. mRNA levels were measured by quantitative real-time RT-PCR and expressed as % γ/(β+ γ), fold change relative to the control and ratio α/(β+γ). In each experiment, each sample had triplicates