Characterization of variant alleles of cytochrome CYP2D6 in a Spanish population

The CYP2D6 gene codes for a P450 monooxygenase which is involved in the biotransformation of a large number of commonly prescribed drugs. Adverse drug effects and therapeutic failure can be related to abnormal CYP2D6 activity. We investigated the allele and genotype frequencies of cytochrome P4502D6 in a Spanish population to predict the prevalence of ultra-rapid and poor metabolizer phenotypes in our population and to design a feasible CYP2D6 genotyping protocol. The study included 105 healthy unrelated Spanish Caucasian volunteers. CYP2D6 genotyping was performed by a combination of long-PCR, direct sequencing and allele-specific real-time PCR. The frequency of the wild-type CYP2D6*1 allele was 31%. The alleles coding for slightly (CYP2D6*2) or moderately (*9 and *10) reduced activity showed frequencies of 40.47, 2.38 and 1.90%, respectively. Frequencies of defective alleles *3, *4, *5 and *6 were 0.95, 13.8, 3.33 and 0.95%, respectively. The defective CYP2D6 alleles *7, *8, *12, *14, *15 and *21 were not found. Duplicated CYP2D6 alleles were detected at a frequency of 4.27%. Our protocol allows the identification of the four inactive CYP2D6 alleles (*3, *4, *5 and *6) and the detection of alleles with CYP2D6 *1, CYP2D6 *2 and CYP2D6*4 gene duplications. Testing for this reduced CYP2D6 allele set would facilitate its use in clinical practice by assisting in the development of individualized pharmacotherapy.