CARACTERIZACIóN DE VARIANTES ALéLICAS DE CITOCROMO CYP2D6 EN LA POBLACIóN DE LA REGIóN CENTROCCIDENTAL DE VENEZUELA

the cyp2d6 gene encodes for a monooxygenase belonging to the cytochrome p450, which is involved in the biotransformation of a large number of commonly prescribed drugs such as antidepressants, antihypertensive and antineoplastic. some side effects, as well as therapeutic failure may be related to abnormal activity of cyp2d6 product of polymorphisms in the cyp2d6 gene. in order to predict the frequency of some poor metabolisers phenotypes of cyp2d6 in the population of the central-western region of venezuela it was determined the allelic and genotypic frequencies of cyp2d6 *3, *4, *6 allelic variants. dna was extracted from peripheral blood of 100 apparently healthy volunteers, and proceded to genotyping by pcr tetra-primer allele-specific analysis and agarose gel electrophoresis. we compared the frequencies obtained with those of other countries. the most frequent allele was cyp2d6 *4 with 16.5%, showing a significant difference to the reported in asian populations. this work is a preliminary study on the characterization of a wider group of cyp2d6 alleles in order to assist the development of an individualized pharmacotherapy in our country.