Studies on the genotype-phenotype relation in the hph-1 mouse mutant deficient in guanosine triphosphate (GTP) cyclohydrolase I activity

The guanosine triphosphate (GTP) cyclohydrolase I (GTP-CHI) catalyses the rate-limiting step in the de novo synthesis of tetrahydrobiopterin, a cofactor of three aromatic amino acid hydroxylases, one of which is phenylalanine hydroxylase. The hph-1 mouse mutant deficient in GTP-CHI activity exhibits hyperphenylalaninemia which peculiarly disappears at 3 weeks of age, thus corresponding to the increase in liver GTP-CHI activity. The present gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric analysis of the phenylalanine and catecholamine metabolisms demonstrated the former metabolism to remain disturbed even in adult hph-1, which demonstrated a metabolic basis for sensitivity to the phenylalanine challenge in adult hph-1. A Northern blot analysis showed the hepatic GTP-CHI RNA expression in hph-1 at 2, 3 and 4 weeks of age to parallel the peculiar time course of the enzyme activity previously reported. No mutation was detected in either the coding region or the 5′ flanking region (nt.−1 to −746) of the GTP-CHI gene of the hph-1. Further molecular genetic analyses are therefore required to elucidate the mechanism of the peculiar phenotype of hph-1.