Hyderabad: With India being a global destination for clinical trials of various drugs, scientists from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), who studied the relationship between variants of genes and their role in drug metabolism, have found that diversity of a particular gene plays a role in how the human body processes drugs.
A study on diversity of cytochrome-P450-2C9 (CYP2C9) gene, published in the journal Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Medicine by Dr K. Thangaraj and his team from the CCMB, found that any changes in the sequence of gene may affect the production of CYP2C9 protein in human liver.
The study found that changes in the gene can cause slower metabolism of drugs slower or a reduced rate of excretion of the drug.
“Many of these drugs have a narrow therapeutic index — they are tolerated by our bodies in very specific amounts. When these drugs are retained in the body for longer, it can lead to toxicity. So, it is important to decide…