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Accelerated apoptosis of erythroid progenitors is a characteristic of β-thalassemia which presents a significant barrier to definitive therapeutic approaches utilizing induction of endogenous fetal globin gene expression. γ-globin gene expression may not be inducible in, or may not be able to rescue, erythroid cells in which programmed cell death is initiated early in erythroblast development. In this report, short-chain fatty acid derivatives (SCFADs) which induce fetal globin gene expression were tested for their ability to promote proliferation and survival of erythroid progenitors cultured from β-thalassemic subjects, and of cytokine-dependent erythroid cell lines. Certain SCFADs promoted thalassemic Bfu-e growth and cytokine-independent growth and survival of erythroid cell lines. A 40-80% increase in erythroid Bfu-e colony number was observed in cultures established with any of five mitogenic SCFADs, compared to control or butyrate-treated cultures from the same subjects. Immunoblot analysis demonstrated that these same SCFADs also regulated the expression of specific protein inhibitors of apoptosis. Antiapoptotic ratios of the proteins Bcl-x L /Bcl-x S in thalassemic Bfu-e were increased by 30-120% with exposure to the SCFDs, compared to the ratios in the same cells cultured under control conditions. Similar anti-apoptotic increases in Mcl-1 L /Mcl-1 S ratios were induced by the SCFADs. These findings suggest that select fetal globin-inducing SCFADs which enhance proliferation of β-thalassemia progenitors may enhance survival of these progenitors by altering levels of Bcl-family protein members. This combination of effects should enhance erythroid cell survival in the β-thalassemia syndromes, allowing fetal globin gene expression to be induced more effectively than currently available, growth-suppressing, fetal globin-inducing agents, such as the butyrates or chemotherapeutic agents.