1. Academic Validation
  2. CLCN2 chloride channel mutations in familial hyperaldosteronism type II

CLCN2 chloride channel mutations in familial hyperaldosteronism type II

  • Nat Genet. 2018 Mar;50(3):349-354. doi: 10.1038/s41588-018-0048-5.
Ute I Scholl 1 2 Gabriel Stölting # 3 Julia Schewe # 4 Anne Thiel 4 Hua Tan 3 Carol Nelson-Williams 5 6 Alfred A Vichot 5 6 Sheng Chih Jin 5 Erin Loring 5 6 7 Verena Untiet 3 Taekyeong Yoo 8 Jungmin Choi 5 6 Shengxin Xu 9 Aihua Wu 9 Marieluise Kirchner 10 Philipp Mertins 10 Lars C Rump 4 Ali Mirza Onder 11 Cory Gamble 12 Daniel McKenney 13 Robert W Lash 14 Deborah P Jones 15 Gary Chune 16 Priscila Gagliardi 17 Murim Choi 8 Richard Gordon 9 Michael Stowasser 9 Christoph Fahlke 3 Richard P Lifton 5 6 7 18
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Nephrology, Medical School, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany. ute.scholl@charite.de.
  • 2 Department of Nephrology and Medical Intensive Care, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany. ute.scholl@charite.de.
  • 3 Institute of Complex Systems, Zelluläre Biophysik (ICS-4), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
  • 4 Department of Nephrology, Medical School, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany.
  • 5 Department of Genetics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
  • 6 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
  • 7 Yale Center for Mendelian Genomics, New Haven, CT, USA.
  • 8 Department of Biomedical Sciences, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
  • 9 Endocrine Hypertension Research Center, University of Queensland Diamantina Institute, Greenslopes and Princess Alexandra Hospitals, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
  • 10 Proteomics Platform, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Society and Core Unit of Proteomics, Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany.
  • 11 Nephrology, Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
  • 12 Cooper Clinic, PA, Fort Smith, AR, USA.
  • 13 Peyton Manning Children's Hospital at St. Vincent, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
  • 14 Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Diabetes, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
  • 15 Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, USA.
  • 16 Olin Teague Veterans Administration Hospital, Temple, TX, USA.
  • 17 Division of Endocrinology, Nemours Children's Specialty Care, Jacksonville, FL, USA.
  • 18 Laboratory of Human Genetics and Genomics, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA.
  • # Contributed equally.
Abstract

Primary aldosteronism, a common cause of severe hypertension 1 , features constitutive production of the adrenal steroid aldosterone. We analyzed a multiplex family with familial hyperaldosteronism type II (FH-II) 2 and 80 additional probands with unsolved early-onset primary aldosteronism. Eight probands had novel heterozygous variants in CLCN2, including two de novo mutations and four independent occurrences of a mutation encoding an identical p.Arg172Gln substitution; all relatives with early-onset primary aldosteronism carried the CLCN2 variant found in the proband. CLCN2 encodes a voltage-gated Chloride Channel expressed in adrenal glomerulosa that opens at hyperpolarized membrane potentials. Channel opening depolarizes glomerulosa cells and induces expression of aldosterone synthase, the rate-limiting Enzyme for aldosterone biosynthesis. Mutant channels show gain of function, with higher open probabilities at the glomerulosa resting potential. These findings for the first time demonstrate a role of anion channels in glomerulosa membrane potential determination, aldosterone production and hypertension. They establish the cause of a substantial fraction of early-onset primary aldosteronism.

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