Contemporary pharmacogenetic assays in view of the PharmGKB database

Pharmacogenomics. 2019 Mar;20(4):261-272. doi: 10.2217/pgs-2018-0167. Epub 2019 Mar 18.

Abstract

Aim: Six modern PGx assays were compared with the Pharmacogenomics Knowledge Base (PharmGKB) to determine the proportion of the currently known PGx genotypes that are assessed by these assays.

Materials & methods: Investigated assays were 'Ion AmpliSeq Pharmacogenomics', 'iPLEX PGx Pro', 'DMET Plus,' 'PharmcoScan,' 'Living DNA' and '23andMe.'

Results: PharmGKB contains 3474 clinical annotations of which 75, 70 and 45% can be determined by PharmacoScan, Living DNA and 23andMe, respectively. The other assays are designed to test a specific subset of PGx variants.

Conclusion: Assaying all known PGx variants would only comprise a minor fraction of the current assays' capacity. Unfortunately, this is not achieved. Moreover, not necessarily the variants with the highest effects or the highest evidence are selected.

Keywords: ADME; PharmGKB; pharmacogenetics; pharmacogenomics.

MeSH terms

  • Databases, Factual / statistics & numerical data
  • Genotype
  • Humans
  • Knowledge Bases*
  • Pharmacogenetics / statistics & numerical data*
  • Pharmacogenomic Testing / statistics & numerical data*