PharmaKoVariome database for supporting genetic testing

Pharmacogenomics (PGx) provides information about routine precision medicine, based on the patient’s genotype. However, many of the available information about human allele frequencies, and about clinical drug–gene interactions, is based on American and European populations. PharmaKoVariome database was constructed to support genetic testing for safe prescription and drug development. It consolidated and stored 2507 diseases, 11 459 drugs and 61 627 drug–target or druggable genes from public databases. PharmaKoVariome precomputed ethnic-specific abundant variants for approximately 120 M single-nucleotide variants of drug–target or druggable genes. A user can search by gene symbol, drug name, disease and reference SNP ID number (rsID) to statistically analyse the frequency of ethnical variations, such as odds ratio and P-values for related genes. In an example study, we observed five Korean-enriched variants in the CYP2B6 and CYP2D6 genes, one of which (rs1065852) is known to be incapable of metabolizing drug. It is also shown that 4–6% of North and East Asians have risk factors for drugs metabolized by the CYP2D6 gene. Therefore, PharmaKoVariome is a useful database for pharmaceutical or diagnostic companies for developing diagnostic technologies that can be applied in the Asian PGx industry. Database URL: http://www.pharmakovariome.com/