PPIB and thalassemia: In China, the conventional methods of genetic testing for thalassemia, such as Gap-PCR and PCR-RDB (Polymerase Chain Reaction-Reverse Dot Blot), typically detect only the 24 hotspot variants commonly found in the Chinese population, which cover approximately 95%–98% of α- and β-thalassemia carriers (Li and Ye, 2024).