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Review Article| Volume 1, ISSUE 1, P13-22, 1988

Molecular biology of steroid hydroxylase deficiency

  • Peter J. Homsby
    Correspondence
    Address reprint requests to: Peter J. Hornsby, Ph.D., Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA 30912, USA.
    Affiliations
    Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia
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      Abstract

      Recent advances in the molecular and cell biology of the steroid hydroxylase genes have begun to provide an explanation for the molecular basis of the steroid hydroxylase deficiencies. 21-Hydroxylase deficiency is one of the most frequent genetic diseases. Sequence data for the human 21-hydroxylase gene show that duplication of the 21-hydroxylase gene with creation of a pseudogene has occurred. Frequent recombination between the two genes may provide an “engine” for the continual generation of new mutant forms. 21-hydroxylase deficiency may result from deletions, alterations of primary sequence resulting in no protein product or a protein with altered properties, or alterations in upstream regulatory elements. A specific hypothesis considered here is that changes in the coding region of the gene may produce a protein with an unusually short half-life due to greater sensitivity to nonproductive cycling in the presence of steroid pseudosubstrates. Pseudosubstrate effects that have been studied in cultured adrenocortical cells are reviewed. Altered regulatory regions of the 21-hydroxylase gene could also selectively affect the enzyme in one region of the cortex if there were a mutation in a cyclic AMP-responsive sequence without an alteration in a putative C-kinase responsive sequence.

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