Abstract

Genetic polymorphisms of drug/xenobiotic metabolizing enzymes can have great impact on the inter-individual variation in drug response or susceptibility to toxicities of xenobiotics. The frequencies of the polymorphic enzymes not also differ from ethnicity, but also differ from country to country in the same ethnic group. In this study, CYP2E1*5B, GSTM1, GSTT1,GSTP1 exon 5 and GSTP1 exon 6 genetic polymorphisms were determined in 302 unrelated healthy individuals in a Turkish population and the results were compared with previous reports. The frequencies of CYP2E1*5B c1/c1, c1/c2 and c2/c2 genotypes were 94.7, 5.3 and 0%, respectively. The frequencies of the deleted GSTM1 and GSTT1 genotypes were 54.6 and 22.2%, respectively. The GSTP1 exon 5 genotype frequencies were Ile/Ile: 56.0%, Ile/Val: 34.8% and Val/Val: 9.3%; GSTP1 exon 6 genotype frequencies were Ala/Ala: 84.8%, Ala/Val: 14.2% and Val/Val: 1.0%. These results revealed that the frequencies of CYP2E1*5B,GSTM1, GSTT1, GSTP1 exon 5 and GSTP1 exon 6 genetic polymorphisms in a Turkish population are similar to European Caucasian populations.

Key words: Drug metabolism, CYP2E1 polymorphism, GST polymorphism, Turkish population.