Objective and study design: Two different mutations in the arginine vasopressin (AVP) gene associated with autosomal dominant familial neurohypophyseal diabetes insipidus (adFNDI) predict Y21H (AVP2) and V67A (NP36) amino acid substitutions of the AVP prohormone. They are unique in that they change, respectively, the AVP moiety and a region of the neurophysin II domain not so far affected by any mutations. To test whether they affect the cellular handling of the AVP prohormone in a similar manner to previously investigated mutations, they were examined by heterologous expression in cell lines.
Results: Both mutations resulted in significantly reduced amounts of immunoreactive AVP in the cell culture medium as determined by radioimmunoassay analysis. Metabolic labelling combined with immunoprecipitation demonstrated that processing and secretion of the mutant prohormones was reduced but not prevented. Finally, confocal laser scanning microscopy showed that normal AVP prohormone and/or its processed products were localized in the tips of the cellular processes, whereas both mutant prohormones were accumulated in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and in the case of the V67A prohormone, also in perinuclear structures outside the ER.
Conclusion: Both mutations result in reduced AVP prohormone processing and secretion probably due to retention in the ER. This supports, at least partly, the hypothesis that the mutations lead to the production of a mutant hormone precursor that fails to fold and/or dimerize properly and, as a consequence, is retained by the ER protein quality control machinery. Perinuclear accumulation of the V67A prohormone outside the ER indicates that additional mechanisms could be involved.