Human mutation affecting hormone-sensitive adenylate cyclase.

Hormone-sensitive adenylate cyclase contains a recently discovered protein component that is required for stimulation of cyclic AMP synthesis by hormones and guanine nucleotides. We measured this protein in erythrocyte membranes of ten patients with pseudohypoparathyroidism (PHP), using assays of its biochemical activity and of its susceptibility to radiolabeling in the presence of 32P-NAD and cholera toxin. By both assays, the protein was reduced by 50% in erythrocytes of 4 PHP patients, as compared with normal and hypoparathyroid subjects. These 4 subjects, in contrast to the 6 PHP patients (5 in one family) whose erythrocytes contained apparently normal amounts of the cyclase component, exhibited the full spectrum of skeletal abnormalities found in PHP. We conclude that partial deficiency of the guanine nucleotide regulatory protein is a biochemical marker for a subset of PHP patients. If present in other tissues, this deficiency could explain the resistance of target organs in PHP to parathormone and other hormones that work via cyclic AMP.