Hypercalcemia in Patients with Williams-Beuren Syndrome.

Objective: To evaluate the timing, trajectory, and implications of hypercalcemia in Williams-Beuren syndrome (WBS) through a multicenter retrospective study.

Study Design: Data on plasma calcium levels from 232 subjects with WBS aged 0-67.1 years were compared with that in controls and also with available normative data.

Location-dependent signaling of the group 1 metabotropic glutamate receptor mGlu5.

Although G protein-coupled receptors are primarily known for converting extracellular signals into intracellular responses, some receptors, such as the group 1 metabotropic glutamate receptor, mGlu5, are also localized on intracellular membranes where they can mediate both overlapping and unique signaling effects. Thus, besides "ligand bias," whereby a receptor's signaling modality can shift from G protein dependence to independence, canonical mGlu5 receptor signaling can also be influenced by "location bias" (i.e.

Intracellular mGluR5 can mediate synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus.

Metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) is widely expressed throughout the CNS and participates in regulating neuronal function and synaptic transmission. Recent work in the striatum led to the groundbreaking discovery that intracellular mGluR5 activation drives unique signaling pathways, including upregulation of ERK1/2, Elk-1 (Jong et al., 2009) and Arc (Kumar et al.