Germline ARMC5 variants may be associated with primary aldosteronism. Additional cohorts of patients with primary aldosteronism and metabolic syndrome, particularly African Americans, should be screened for ARMC5 sequence variants because these may underlie part of the known increased predisposition of African Americans to low renin hypertension.

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Objective Primary macronodular adrenal hyperplasia (PMAH) is a rare type of Cushing’s syndrome (CS) that results in increased cortisol production and bilateral enlargement of the adrenal glands. Recent work showed that the disease may be caused by germline and somatic mutations in the ARMC5 gene, a likely tumor-suppressor gene (TSG). We investigated 20 different adrenal nodules from one patient with PMAH for ARMC5 somatic sequence changes. Design All of the nodules where obtained from a single patient who underwent bilateral adrenalectomy. DNA was extracted by standard protocols and the ARMC5 sequence was determined by the Sanger method. Results Sixteen of 20 adrenocortical nodules harbored, in addition to what appeared to be the germline mutation, a second somatic variant. The p.Trp476* sequence change was present in all 20 nodules, as well as in normal tissue from the adrenal capsule, identifying it as the germline defect; each of the 16 other variants were found in different nodules: 6 were frame shift, 4 were missense, 3 were nonsense, and 1 was a splice site variation. Allelic losses were confirmed in 2 of the nodules. Conclusion This is the most genetic variance of the ARMC5 gene ever described in a single patient with PMAH: each of 16 adrenocortical nodules had a second new, “private”, and -in most cases- completely inactivating ARMC5 defect, in addition to the germline mutation. The data support the notion that ARMC5 is a TSG that needs a second, somatic hit, to mediate tumorigenesis leading to polyclonal nodularity; however, the driver of this extensive genetic variance of the second ARMC5 allele in adrenocortical tissue in the context of a germline defect and PMAH remains a mystery.