Genetic epidemiology of environmental toxicity and cancer susceptibility: Human allelic polymorphisms in drug-metabolizing enzyme genes, their functional importance, and nomenclature issues

Pharmacogenetics is the study of idiosyncratic drug responses that have an hereditary basis and usually reflect differences in drug-metabolizing enzym es (DMEs) and the receptors that control DME levels. The purpose of this re view is to provide a brief overview of recent findings concerning more than a dozen clinically important polymorphisms and to emphasize the need to st andardize the nomenclature of these alleles in each polymorphism, as quickl y as possible. This nomenclature system should be consistent with the Human Gene Nomenclature Guidelines.