A novel homozygous deletion in the calcium-sensing receptor ligand-binding domain associated with neonatal severe hyperparathyroidism.

Neonatal severe hyperparathyroidism (NSHPT) is a life-threatening disorder usually caused by homozygous mutations occurring in the calcium-sensing receptor (CaR) gene. We examined an infant hospitalised with NSHPT for mutations in the CaR gene using heterozygous sequence analysis and confirmed this result by a restriction enzyme assay. Clinical management of this case, which was beset by other complications, involved control of the hypercalcemia and the effects of hyperparathyroidism by a combination of treatments prior to parathyroidectomy performed at 10 months. Mutational analysis demonstrated a homozygous 5 base-pair deletion in the CaR gene located at the 5' end of exon 4 which would result in a severely truncated, non-functional receptor with only the first 164 amino acids of the CaR followed by 23 amino acids of aberrant sequence. This is the first report of an out-of-frame deletion in the extracellular domain of the CaR associated with clinical disease.