Detection of drug metabolizing enzyme gene (DMEs) polymorphisms among the Zulu population of South Africa.

Abstract

The ability to metabolise drugs and achieve positive therapeutic outcomes is dependent on both genetic and environmental factors. The focus of this study was to determine the distribution and frequency of clinically relevant DME alleles and to assess the impact of these DME alleles on therapeutic outcomes in a cohort of 50 HIV-TB co-infected Zulu participants. PCR-RFLP was used to generate a genotypic profile of CYPIA2, 2C9, 2C19, 2E1, 3A4, MDR-1 and NAT-2. The distributions of the allelic frequencies were as follows. The CYPIA2 (A) - 50.7%, CYP2C9*2 — 100% and *3 — 56.2%, CYP2C19*2 — 35.4%, CYP2E1 (C2) — 28.4%, CYP3A4*1B (G) — 58.2%, MDR-1 (C3435T) - 16% and NAT-2 slow acetylators — 6.5%. Seventy-three percent of participants had prolonged TB therapy. Within this group, 82.9% of patient displayed wild type and 17.2% variant allele for CYP2E1 gene (p= 0.04) profile. In addition, all the slow acetylators in this study had prolonged TB therapy. In the MDR-1 gene, 87.5% showed wild type allele and 12.5% displayed the variant allele. Unsuccessful TB outcomes were also noted in 22% of this study population. In this group the variant allele was found to be dominant in CYPIA2, CYP3A4 and NAT-2, the opposite was seen in CYP2E1 and MDR-1. It was also interesting to note a similar genetic profile in the group that showed successful TB therapy outcomes. All participants had positive ARV treatment outcomes despite DME genotypic variations. However, 26% of all study participants experienced liver enzyme abnormalities. These findings concur with other studies regarding the ethnic distribution of DME alleles and evidence of an association between ART and TB therapeutic outcomes and DME genotype variation was inconclusive.