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Original Studies |
Division of Endocrinology, The Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (C.M., J.F., B.Y.L.H., A.K., C.A.S.), and Departments of Pediatrics and Genetics (A.G.), University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104; Department of Pediatrics, Hopital des Enfants-Malades (P.d.L.-D., J.-M.S.), 75743 Paris CEDEX 15, France; and Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University (T.A.S.), West Lafayette, Indiana 47907
Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Charles A. Stanley, M.D., Division of Endocrinology, The Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, 3516 Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104. E-mail: stanleyc{at}email.chop.edu
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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GDH, a key enzyme involved in amino acid-stimulated insulin secretion,
is allosterically activated by leucine to oxidize glutamate to
-ketoglutarate plus ammonia (14). We have previously
shown that HI/HA syndrome patients have GDH mutations that impair its
responsiveness to allosteric inhibition by GTP, resulting in a gain of
enzyme function (15, 16). The increased GDH activity leads
to inappropriate insulin secretion in pancreatic ß-cells as well as
to excessive ammonia production and decreased urea synthesis in the
liver (17). Affected patients appear to have milder
hypoglycemia than infants with SUR1 and Kir6.2 forms of
hyperinsulinism, but have protein-sensitive hypoglycemia and
exaggerated insulin responses to leucine (18).
In previous studies GDH mutations producing the HI/HA syndrome were found to be located in a single domain encoded by exons 11 and 12. On x-ray crystallography, this region was shown to form an antenna projection that is presumed to play an important role in allosteric regulation of enzyme (15, 16, 19). The purpose of the present report is to describe the occurrence of HI/HA mutations in a second domain encoded by exons 6 and 7, which appears to form the inhibitory GTP binding site. Studies of the effects of these mutations on lymphoblast GDH suggest that this site is also responsible for the inhibitory effects of ATP on GDH activity.
| Materials and Methods |
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Peripheral blood samples were obtained on 65 children with clinical features of the HI/HA syndrome for isolation of DNA and establishment of cultured lymphoblasts. All subjects had clinical evidence of hyperinsulinism, including attacks of symptomatic hypoglycemia and elevated concentrations of plasma ammonium. The diagnosis of hyperinsulinism was established by clinical findings such as evidence of inappropriately elevated plasma insulin, suppressed concentrations of plasma free fatty acids and ketones, and glycemic response to glucagon at times of hypoglycemia (10). Contributing investigators provided clinical information on affected children and their families. These studies were reviewed and approved by the institutional review board, and written informed consent was obtained from subjects or their parents.
Mutation analysis
Genomic DNA was isolated from peripheral blood leukocytes or
from cultured lymphoblasts and used for amplification of exons 513.
The primers shown in Table 1
were
employed to amplify exons 510 and 13; primers for exon 11 and 12 have
previously been reported (16). Conformation-sensitive gel
electrophoresis was used to screen amplified exons for mutations
(21) as previously described with the following
modifications: an 0.8-mm thick gel was prepared with final
concentrations of 40% acrylamide-bis(acryloyl) piperazine (99:1;
Fluka, Buchs, Switzerland), 2 x TTE buffer (1 x TTE
is 89 mmol/L Tris and 29 mmol/L taurine/0.5 mmol/L ethylenediamine
tetraacetate, pH 9.0; U.S. Biochemical Corp., Cleveland,
OH), 15% (wt/vol) formamide (Roche, Indianapolis, IN),
and 10% (vol/vol) ethylene glycol (Fisher Scientific,
Pittsburgh, PA).
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Polymorphism analysis
Fifty unrelated normal control genomic DNA samples were amplified and run on conformation-sensitive gel electrophoresis for each exon in which there was a mutation or suspected polymorphism. The products that displayed band shifts were confirmed through sequencing or restriction enzyme digestion. The results were analyzed by the Fisher exact test using the InStat program (version 2.0; Dr. Harvey J. Motulsky, John R. Pilkington, and Paul Stannard) to determine whether the frequency of polymorphism in the patient population was significantly different from the frequency in the healthy control population.
Enzyme assay
Lymphoblast GDH enzyme activity and allosteric responsiveness were determined using the assay described by Wrzeszczynski and Colman (23) with modifications as previously described (16).
| Results |
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A total of 65 probands with clinical features of the HI/HA
syndrome were screened for mutations in GDH. As previously reported, 31
(48%) of these patients had mutations in exons 11 and 12, encoding the
antenna region of the enzyme. Nineteen (29%) of the total had
mutations in exons 6 and 7, as described below. The clinical phenotypes
of these children (Table 2
) were similar
to those previously described in HI/HA children with exon 11 and 12
mutations. Birth weights were not large for gestational age, except for
1 infant of a diabetic mother. The median age of apparent onset of
symptomatic hypoglycemia was late in the first year of life and not
during the neonatal period. Plasma ammonium concentrations were
persistently elevated between 49 and 150 µmol/L (normal, <35
µmol/L), but the hyperammonemia was not considered to be symptomatic
in any patient. Eleven of 19 were treated with diazoxide and achieved
good control of hypoglycemia; 8 were treated successfully with diet
alone. One case had persistent hypoglycemia after 95% pancreatectomy
and has insulin-dependent diabetes since a second surgery. Half of the
cases reached developmental milestones at appropriate ages, whereas the
other half were reported to have developmental delays or mental
retardation related to episodes of hypoglycemia.
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Table 3
shows the disease-causing
mutations found in the 19 HI/HA probands with mutations in exons 6 and
7 of GDH. All were single nucleotide missense mutations that occurred
between amino acid residues 217269 of the mature GDH protein. In each
case the patients were heterozygous, possessing both a mutated and a
normal allele, consistent with dominant expression. Three of the
mutations occurred in multiple, unrelated probands: 8 for the
Arg269His mutation, 6 for the
Arg221Cys mutation, and 2 for the
Arg265 Thr mutation. Both the Arg269 and the
Arg221 are CpG mutation hot spot sites (24).
In 3 of the 4 probands with affected family members, at least 3
generations were affected. The other 15 probands were sporadic cases
with de novo mutations.
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Genomic DNA screening of GDH exons 513 revealed three
polymorphisms in the entire group of 65 patients. Fifty normal controls
were examined to determine whether these mutations were true
polymorphisms. Table 3
shows the frequency of the polymorphisms in the
HI/HA patients and normal controls. By Fisher sxact test, there was no
difference in the frequency of the polymorphisms between patients and
controls.
GDH enzyme analysis
Table 4
shows the enzyme activities
and allosteric constants of lymphoblast GDH from patients with
mutations in exons 6 and 7. All five showed reduced sensitivity to
inhibition by the allosteric effector, GTP, with
IC50 values ranging from 1.25 times normal.
These reductions in sensitivity to GTP inhibition of lymphoblast GDH
activity were similar to those previously reported in HI/HA patients
with mutations of exons 11 and 12 (15, 16).
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Figure 1
compares the allosteric effects
of ATP on lymphoblast GDH enzyme activity in two HI/HA patients and a
normal control. In contrast to other allosteric effectors, ATP produced
a triphasic response, with initial inhibition followed by stimulation
and, finally, inhibition of activity. The initial inhibitory phase was
blunted in the two mutants, and the ATP trough concentration was lower
than that in the normal control. The results of additional studies of
lymphoblast GDH responses to ATP in five exon 6 and 7 mutations and in
three previously reported exon 11 and 12 mutations are shown in Table 5
. In most cases, the maximal
ATP-stimulated activity was similar to that in the control, but there
was impairment of the first phase suppression by ATP. With all of these
mutations, similar to the patterns shown in Fig. 1
, the stimulatory
second and the inhibitory third phases of response to ATP did not
appear to be affected.
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| Discussion |
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The HI/HA syndrome is the first genetic disorder identified that is caused by a gain of function in an enzyme of intermediary metabolism. Other gain of function disorders previously described have usually involved mutations in plasma membrane hormone receptor signaling pathways. These diseases include oncogenic mutations as well as several endocrine disorders, such as familial male limited precocious puberty, familial hypocalcemia, and McCune- Albright syndrome (25, 26). These gain of function disorders have several features in common: the mutated genes are key regulatory steps in the signaling pathways, the defects arise due to a loss of inhibitory control, and the disorders are dominantly expressed. The HI/HA syndrome shares all of these features, emphasizing the importance of GDH allosteric regulation and the possibility that GDH may be a site for defects that cause diabetes.
We have previously suggested that the mechanism of both the
hyperinsulinism and the hyperammonemia in patients with GDH mutations
is an increased rate of oxidative deamination of glutamate to
-ketoglutarate and ammonia. This suggestion is consistent with
in vitro data showing an increase in labeled glutamate
oxidation during leucine-stimulated insulin secretion in isolated
islets (14, 18). Although this mechanism assumes that flux
through GDH is always in the direction of oxidation, controversy about
the direction of the reaction has recently arisen (27).
Wollheim and colleagues have proposed that GDH flux in the direction of
glutamate synthesis plays a central role in glucose-stimulated insulin
secretion (28). In either case, loss of inhibitory control
of GDH activity would be expected to increase insulin secretion,
consistent with the hypothesis that the HI/HA syndrome is caused by
excessive GDH activity.
The x-ray crystal structure of bovine GDH, which is 95% identical
to that of human GDH, has recently been reported (19). As
shown in Fig. 3
, the mutations in exons 6
and 7 all lie in a pocket that forms one of two GTP-binding sites. This
region is adjacent to the location of the exon 11 and 12 HI/HA
mutations that lie along the antenna region (16).
Together, these observations support the conclusion that the region in
Fig. 3
, previously termed the GTP1 site, is indeed the major GTP
inhibitory allosteric binding site. The second GTP binding site,
GTP2, (not shown) has been suggested to be the site for ADP allosteric
activation of GDH activities.
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The mutated exon 6 and 7 residues contain positively charged arginine or hydroxyl side-chains capable of binding strongly to the negatively charged triphosphate tail of GTP. Ser217 also has the capacity of binding to the ribose sugar of GTP, and Arg265 can bind to the guanosine ring of the molecule. One of the mutated residues, Tyr262, has been previously demonstrated to be important for GTP inhibition through chemical modification studies (29). Yorifuji et al. and Miki et al. recently described additional patients with the HI/HA syndrome who have GDH mutations in exons 10 and 7, respectively (30, 31). The reported patients with Glu296Ala and Arg265Lys had similar clinical manifestations of the HI/HA syndrome. Additional sites of mutation in GDH may be discovered in other patients with the HI/HA syndrome, which either bind directly to GTP or disrupt the structural conformation of the inhibited enzyme.
Initial reports suggested that serum ammonium concentrations in patients with the HI/HA syndrome were always markedly elevated, 510 times over the upper limits of normal. However, the present data indicate that ammonium levels as low as 49 µmol/L may be found. There appeared to be a significant genotype-phenotype correlation between serum ammonium concentration and sensitivity to GTP inhibition that is consistent with the concept that altered GDH activity in the liver is responsible for the abnormal ammonia metabolism. No such correlation was apparent for the hypoglycemia component of the HI/HA syndrome. Patients with mild mutations, such as Arg269Cys, appear to have as many problems with hypoglycemia as those with severe defects, such as Arg221Cys, although attempts to quantify the severity of hypoglycemia have not been made. Nevertheless, it is possible that patients with hyperinsulinism due to GDH mutations may be discovered who have serum ammonia levels indistinguishable from normal.
In summary, the HI/HA syndrome is a common cause of congenital hyperinsulinism. The importance of the inhibitory GTP-binding domain of GDH is highlighted by the identification of the exon 6 and 7 mutations in the present series. The possibility of the HI/HA syndrome should be considered in adults with newly diagnosed hyperinsulinism, because some affected individuals escape recognition in childhood. Measurement of the plasma ammonium concentration on a casual blood sample provides a simple screening test for the disorder.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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2 The HI/HA contributing investigators are: Rosalind Brown
(Worcester, MA), Neil Buist (Portland, OR), Majed Dasouki
(Kansas City, MO), Richard Fefferman (Los Angeles, CA), Dorothy
Grange (St. Louis, MO), Lefkothea Karaviti (Houston, TX), Christina
Luedke (Boston, MA), Barbara Marriage (Edmonton, Canada), Judith
McLaughlin (Baltimore, MD), Kusiel Perlman (Toronto, Canada), Margretta
Seashore (New Haven, CT), and Guy Van Vliet (Montréal,
Canada). ![]()
Received October 16, 2000.
Revised December 5, 2000.
Accepted December 7, 2000.
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