β-thalassemia/HbE	beta thalassemia with variant hemoglobin E
ESI-QTOF-MS/MS	electrospray-ionisation-quadrupole-time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry
STRING	Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes
PPIs	protein-protein interaction networks
APOD	Apolipoprotein D
HSCs	hematopoietic stem cells