Abstract

CYP2C19 is a highly polymorphic enzyme that affects the metabolism of a wide range of therapeutic drugs. Almost all the identified alleles of CYP2C19 are derived from nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (nsSNPs). The objective of this study was to functionally characterize 20 nsSNPs of CYP2C19, distributed throughout the entire coding region, most of which have not been thoroughly characterized. cDNAs of these variants were constructed and expressed in yeast cells. All variants had similar levels of apoprotein and holoprotein expression, except for CYP2C19.16 and D360N, which had significantly lower holoprotein levels than the wild-type (WT) CYP2C19 enzyme, and CYP2C19.5B, which showed only apoprotein. The activity of the CYP2C19 variants was investigated using two substrates, S-mephenytoin and omeprazole, and six different kinetic parameters were measured. CYP2C19.5B, CYP2C19.6, and CYP2C19.8 were found to be catalytically inactive. The entire dataset of the remaining 17 variants, together with the WT, was analyzed by multivariate analysis. This analysis indicated that CYP2C19.9, CYP2C19.10, CYP2C19.16, CYP2C19.18, CYP2C19.19, A161P, W212C, and D360N were substantially altered in catalytic properties in comparison with the WT, with each of these variants exhibiting either dramatically decreased catalytic activities or higher K_m values. These results not only generally confirmed the function of previously reported variants but also identified additional reduced-function variants. These findings will greatly extend our understanding of CYP2C19 genetic polymorphisms in humans as well as facilitate the structure-function study of the CYP2C19 protein.