臨床薬理学および生物薬剤学

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Pharmacogenomics-Guided Approaches to Avoiding Adverse Drug Reactions

Wanqing Liu and Shu-Feng Zhou

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are one of the major causes of patient morbidity and mortality. Pharmacogenomics is the study of how individual response to drugs is affected by genetic mutations at the genome level. There is clinical evidence that polymorphisms in genes encoding drug-metabolizing enzymes, drug transporters and drug targets (e.g. receptors & enzymes) can lead to the occurrence of ADRs. In addition, mutations of certain genes can precipitate ADRs. Over the past years, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified a number of common and rare variants that are associated with increased risk of ADRs. As affordable and reliable genetic testing tools become available to physicians, pharmacogenomics looks promising to facilitate individualization of drug therapy and as a result, this will maximize the therapeutic efficacy of drugs in patients while minimizing the occurrence of ADRs.