Molecular cloning of steroid 21-hydroxylase

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 21-hydroxylase (21-OH) deficiency is HLA-linked. The haplotype HLA-(A3);Bw47;DR7 is strongly associated with 21-OH deficiency and always carries a null allele at the complement C4A (Rodgers) locus. It seemed likely that this haplotype carries a deletion encompassing both the C4A and 21-OH loci. We hypothesized that the HLA-linked defect involved a structural gene for the adrenal microsomal cytochrome P-450 specific for steroid 21-hydroxylation. We isolated a plasmid with a 520 bp bovine adrenal cDNA insert encoding the middle third of the P-450 peptide. When human DNA was digested with Taq I restriction endonuclease and hybridized with the cDNA probe, DNA from 13 unrelated normal individuals yielded two hybridizing bands of equal intensity at 3.7 and 3.2 kb. The upper band was not present in DNA from a patient homozygous for Bw47. DNA from six unrelated patients heterozygous for Bw47 yielded, in five, diminished relative intensity of the upper band consistent with a heterozygous deletion, and complete disappearance of the upper band in one. Thus 21-OH deficiency sometimes results from the deletion of a gene and sometimes, presumably, from smaller mutations. This gene is probably located very near the C4A gene encoding the 4th component of complement.