Prevalence of CYP2D6*4 1934G/A polymorphism in Western Indian HIV patients

Hepatic CYP2D6 enzyme metabolizes antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) including nevirapine. Polymorphism in CYP2D6 gene affects drug metabolism and displays distinctive phenotypes in the population. Hence, we investigated the prevalence of CYP2D6*4 1934G/A polymorphism in a total of 165 HIV patients that include 34 with and 131 without hepatotoxicity and 160 unrelated healthy controls by the PCR-RFLP method. The prevalence of CYP2D6*4 1934AA genotype was higher in total HIV patients as compared to healthy controls (1.81% vs 0.6%, OR = 2.86). Similarly, CYP2D6*4 1934AA genotype was much more prevalent in HIV patients without hepatotoxicity as compared to healthy controls (2.3% vs 0.6%, OR = 2.87). Likewise, CYP2D6*4 1934AA genotype was predominant in advanced HIV disease stage as compared to healthy controls (3.8% vs 0.6%, OR = 6.15). CYP2D6*4 1934GA genotype was distributed higher in HIV patients taking tobacco and nevirapine as compared to non-users (23.3% vs 19.3%, OR = 1.21, 21.0% vs 16.7%, OR = 1.2). Likewise, CYP2D6*4 1934GA genotype was overrepresented in patients with hepatotoxicity taking alcohol + nevirapine as compared to alcohol non-users + nevirapine users (20.00% vs 16.67%, OR = 1.25). Thus, there was no significant difference in genotype or allele frequencies of CYP2D6*4 1934G/A polymorphism between the patients with hepatotoxicity and those without or healthy controls.