pharmacogenomics and Schizophrenia

Lee, Kyu Young; Chung, In Won

Abstract

The pharmacotherapy of schizophrenia exhibit wide inter-individual variabilities in clinical efficacy and adverse effects. Recently. human genetic diversity has been known as one of the essential factors to the variation in human drug response. This suggests that drug therapy should be tailored to the genetic characteristics of the individual. Pharmacogenetics is the field of investigation that attempts to elucidate genetic basis of an individual's responses to pharmacotherapy, considering drug effects divided into two categories as pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. The emerging field of pharmacogenomics. which focuses on genetic determinants of drug response at the level of the entire human genome, is important for development and prescription of safer and more effective individually tailored drugs and will aid in understanding how genetics influence drug response. In schizophrenia, pharmacogenetic studies have shown the role of genetic variants of the cytochrome P450 enzymes such as CYP2D6, CYP2C19, and CYP2A1 in the metabolism of antipsychotic drugs. At the level of drug targets, variants of the dopamine D_(2), D_(3) and D_(4), and 5-HT_(2A) and 5-HT(2C) receptors have been examined. The pharmacogenetic studies in schizophrenia presently shows controversial findings which may be related to the multiple involvement of genes with relatively small effects and to the lack of standardized phenotypes. For further development in the pharmacogenomics of schizophrenia, there would be required the extensive outcome measures and definitious, and the powerful new tools of genomics, proteomics and so on.

pharmacogenomics and Schizophrenia

Abstract

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