HBA1 and alpha thalassemia spectrum: Alpha‐thalassemia is another autosomal recessive disorder involving chromosome 16 (Deisseroth et al., 1977), while α‐thalassemia/mental retardation syndrome of chromosome 16 (ATR16) is associated with very large deletions in 16p13.3 (ATR16 syndrome, OMIM:141750) (Gibson et al., 2008; Wilkie et al., 1990), including deletion in the hemoglobin subunit alpha 1 (HBA1; OMIM 141800) and hemoglobin subunit alpha 2 (HBA2; OMIM 141850) genes.