Population analysis of xenobiotic metabolizing genes

Individual variability in xenobiotic metabolism has been associated with susceptibility to developing complex dis-eases. Genes involved in xenobiotic metabolism have been evaluated in association studies; the difficulty of obtain-ing accurate gene frequencies in mixed populations makes interpretation of the results difficult. We sought to estimate population parameters for the cytochrome P450 and glutathione S-transferase gene families, thus contrib-uting to studies using these genes as markers. We describe the frequencies of six genes (CYP1A1, CYP2D6, CYP2E1, GSTM1, GSTT1, and GSTP1) and estimate population parameters in 115 Euro-descendants and 196 Afro-descendants from Curitiba, South of Brazil. PCR-based methods were used for genotyping, and statistical anal-ysis were performed by AMOVA with ARLEQUIN software. The mutant allele frequencies in the Afro-descendant