Ak. Daly et al., Recent advances in understanding the molecular basis of polymorphisms in genes encoding cytochrome P450 enzymes, TOX LETT, 103, 1998, pp. 143-147
The cytochrome P450 superfamily is known to exhibit a high degree of geneti
c polymorphism and polymorphisms associated with absent or low enzyme activ
ity in CYP2D6, CYP2C19 and CYP2C9 are particularly well studied. However, d
espite early reports of strong disease associations for particular CYP2D6 p
henotypes, these have not been confirmed in recent, more detailed studies a
nd it now appears that analysis of CYPD2D6, CYP2C19 and CYP2C9 genotype is
of most value in predicting metabolism of specific drugs. Polymorphisms in
other cytochrome P450 genes are less well studied and appear not to be asso
ciated with complete absence of enzyme activity. We have recently carried o
ut studies of polymorphism in both CYP1A1 and CYP2E1. The molecular basis o
f the apparent CYP1A1 'high inducibility' polymorphism was investigated by
studying CYP1A1 and Ah receptor polymorphisms in a group of phenotyped indi
viduals who were genotyped both for known and novel CYP1A1 and Ah receptor
polymorphisms. Three novel polymorphisms in CYP1A1 (C-459T, G(-469)A and C4
151T) and one in the Ah receptor (G(1768)A; V570I) were detected by single
strand conformational polymorphism analysis and DNA sequencing. Among both
novel and previously known polymorphisms, only the Ah receptor G(1721)A pol
ymorphism, which has an allele frequency of 0.12 in Caucasians and was dete
cted previously in a Japanese population, was significantly associated with
high induced CYP1A1 activity. In the case of CYP2E1, we have detected thre
e polymorphisms in the promoter region (A(-316)G, T(-297)A and G(-35)T) and
one in the coding sequence (G(4804)A; V179I) by screening Caucasian DNA sa
mples. The significance of these alleles has been investigated but only G(-
35)T combined with T(-297)A, which has an allele frequency of 0.05, appears
to be of functional significance, with an apparent 1.8-fold increase in le
vels of transcriptional activity compared with the wild-type. (C) 1998 Else
vier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.