PCR-based CYP2D6 genotyping for Finnish lung cancer patients

Polymorphism of the gene encoding for debrisoquine hydroxylase, i.e. CYP2D6, was determined genotypically for 122 healthy controls and 106 lung cancer patients using Xba I restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis, together with a combination of two recently published polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based approaches. Three different mutated alleles of the CYP2D6 gene were detected; CYP2D6B comprised 11.1% and 10.4% of the total alleles in the controls and in the lung cancer patients, CYP2D6A had frequencies of 5.7% and 2.8%, and CYP2D6D had frequencies of 3.3% and 2.4%, respectively. Only 17 of the 24 44 kb Xba I alleles (71%) were confirmed as defective alleles carrying the mutation in CYP2D6B loci, whereas all four 15 + 9 kb Xba I alleles contained the CYP2D6B mutation. Out of the 122 healthy controls, seven subjects (5.7%) were detected as poor metabolizers (PMs) of debrisoquine by the presence of two defective alleles, whereas only one PM genotype was found in the lung cancer patient group (0.9%). The reliability of this analysis was confirmed in a subgroup of the control subjects phenotyped by debrisoquine, where a perfect correlation between CYP2D6 phenotype and genotype was obtained. We observed no significant difference in the allelic frequencies between lung cancer patients with a history of heavy smoking and those who smoked less. However, statistical analysis showed a significant difference (p = 0.05) in distribution of the PM-associated genotypes between lung cancer patients (1/106) and healthy controls (7/122). This data thus supports the hypothesis that there is an increased risk of lung cancer for individuals who are extensive metabolizers of debrisoquine.