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Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is a family of inherited disorders of adrenal steroidogenesis, most commonly due to deficiency of P-450 21-hydroxylase (21-OH). There are two genes for 21-OH on the short arm of chromosome 6, the A gene which is thought to be inactive, and the B gene. These genes appear as 3·2 and 3·7 kb TaqI fragments on Southern blots. In a study of DNA from 60 normal controls with TaqI and a 21-OH cDNA probe, 12% exhibited a homozygous deletion of the A gene, and 22 and 8% heterozygous deletions of A and B genes respectively. TaqI analysis of eight patients with CAH revealed four without A or B gene deletions, three with heterozygous deletions of the B gene and one with a homozygous deletion of the B gene. On further analysis with KpnI, EcoRI, PvuII and BglII, however, these genotypes were amended to two with heterozygous deletions of the B gene and two with possible B to A gene conversions. The genotypes of the four patients without deletions remained unchanged.

RNA from CAH and Cushing's adrenal tissue was also analysed using A and B gene-specific oligodeoxynucleotide probes. B gene transcripts were detected in both CAH and Cushing's adrenals, while no A gene transcripts could be detected in either tissue. The level of B gene-derived mRNA was greater in the Cushing's adrenal than in the CAH adrenal, which in turn was greater than that in the adrenal from a normal individual.

These results suggest that there is a high frequency of 21-OH gene deletions in the normal population, but that TaqI alone is not capable of unequivocally identifying such deletions. The results also suggest that CAH is caused by heterogenous defects of the B gene. The defective gene, however, is transcriptionally active, indicating that the defect is not within the regulatory region.