4 research outputs found
Malaria pharmacogenetics in Botswana: interethnic differences and public health.
Human cytochrome P450 2C8 and 2B6 are two highly polymorphic genes and show variation
according to ethnicity. They are very important drug-metabolism genes in tropical medicine since
the respective liver enzymes are involved in the metabolism of antimalarial drugs chloroquine,
amodiaquine (CYP2C8) and artemisinin derivatives (CYP2B6). The CYP2C8*2, CYP2B6*6,
CYP2B6*16, CYP2B6*18 alleles are slow drug metabolism alleles and show high frequency in
Black populations. The objective of this study was to assess their prevalence in Botswana among
the San (or Bushmen) and the Bantu ethnic groups. For that purpose we recruited 544 children of
the two ethnicities in three districts of Botswana from primary schools, collected blood samples,
extracted DNA and genotyped them through PCR-based restriction fragment length polymorphism
analysis. The results demonstrated that in the San the prevalence of the CYP2C8*2 allele is
significantly higher than among the Bantu-related ethnic groups, as well as is lower the prevalence
of the CYP2B6 alleles. These findings support the evidence of a different genetic background of the
San with respect to Bantu-related populations, and highlight a possible higher risk of variable drug
clearance and/or activation of pro-drugs CYP2C8 and CYP2B6-mediated among the San group to
respect the Bantu of Botswana