Current Pharmacogenomics - Volume 4, Issue 3, 2006

Genetic factors are supposed to play a major role for the differences in response to treatment or the incidence of adverse drug effects in psychopharmacotherapy. The aim of pharmacogenetics is to elucidate this variability due to hereditary differences. According to the currently known hypotheses on the mechanisms of drug action, several mutations in genes coding for neurotransmitter-receptors, -degrading enz Read More

Affective disorders, including unipolar (UP) disorder and bipolar (BP) disorder are among the most important causes of death and disability worldwide and result in high costs in terms of morbidity as well as mortality. Although the etiology and pathophysiology is widely unknown, family-, twin- and adoption studies argue for a strong genetic determination of these disorders. These studies indicate that there is between 40- Read More

Microarrays have become one of the leading technologies used for gene expression analysis and functional genomics in many biological fields. Potential applications of microarrays can facilitate advances in molecular biology, systems biology, functional genomics, clinical medicine, and pharmacogenomics. However, microarray data can also lead to inaccurate and irreproducible conclusions. Here, we present a critical re Read More

This paper will review the literature on the most recent advances of pharmacogenomics of essential hypertension. Specifically, the hypotheses regarding the responsibility of gene polymorphisms in hypertension and whether the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying hypertension can be translated in pharmacogenomic evidence will be analyzed. In particular, the present review will cover the role of genes in blood press Read More

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood disorder, symptoms of which include inattentiveness, impulsiveness, distractibility and hyperactivity. Although the etiology of ADHD is not known, high heritability estimates (ranging from 60-90%) have been reported. The mode of inheritance is also unknown, however, it is widely believed that multiple susceptibility genes (each of small effect) are contr Read More

Although microarray analysis is a highly promising technology in the genome era, its application for gene expression profiling to characterize various phenomes, including genetic phenotypes, diseases, responses to chemicals and clinical annotations, is far from being a real use. One of the obstacles is the quality of the data, which needs to be enough to be able to solely use microarrays for these purposes. For this, selecting Read More

Pharmacogenetics is a rapidly expanding area of research focussed on the relationship between drug response and genetic variation. Due to the broad range of potential applications its influence on the process of drug development and on the practice of medicine, but also on society could be enormous. Therefore, the ethical, social and legal issues connected to the field are the subject of a number of recent publications. This r Read More