Familial benign hypercalcemia--from clinical description to molecular genetics

Familial benign hypercalcemia (or familial hypocalciuric hypercalcemia), a syndrome of lifelong hypercalcemia inherited as an autosomal dominant trait, is distinct from the multiple endocrine neoplasia syndromes and other forms of inherited parathyroid disease. Familial benign hypercalcemia results from the inappropriate secretion of parathyroid hormone despite hypercalcemia, enhanced renal tubular reabsorption of calcium (independent of parathyroid hormone), and apparent tissue resistance to adverse effects of hypercalcemia. Heterozygosity for the familial hypercalcemia trait is benign, although homozygosity for the trait may lead to severe neonatal primary hyperparathyroidism. Genetic linkage studies show that most persons affected with familial hypercalcemia have a mutation on the long arm of chromosome 3 (3cen-q21), although one phenotypically indistinguishable family appears to have a mutation on the short arm of chromosome 19 (19p), and another family has neither 3q nor 19p mutations. One group has recently shown mutations in a putative parathyroid cell-surface calcium receptor that are plausible causes for the chromosome 3q variant of the familial hypercalcemia syndrome. Perhaps the other genes for this syndrome encode proteins representing hitherto-unknown regulators of systemic calcium metabolism independent of parathyroid cell calcium sensing or proteins involved in signal transduction from the calcium receptor.