In silico study on the inhibitory interaction of drugs with wild-type CYP2D6.1 and the natural variant CYP2D6.17.

The natural variant of the cytochrome P450 enzyme CYP2D6.1, CYP2D6.17, is most common in African populations, has three amino acid substitutions (T107I, R296C, and S486T) compared to the wild-type, and is known to have a different ligand preference from CYP2D6.1. It is becoming increasingly important to understand differences in the metabolism of medicines in different ethnic groups in order to assess the relevance of clinical data from different countries. This study investigated differences in the inhibition profiles of drugs for CYP2D6 with respect to gene polymorphisms. Firstly, we used computer docking with six drugs to several CYP2D6.1 structures, sampled from the trajectory of MD simulations, and calculated MM-GB/SA scores representing binding free energies. We then used regression analysis to predict the potency with which drugs inhibited CYP2D6.1 based on MM-GB/SA scores. The pKi-values obtained were in good agreement with experimental values measured for the six drugs (r(2) = 0.81). We carried out the same analysis for CYP2D6.17 and the pKi-values calculated were also in good agreement with experimental values (r(2) = 0.92). Finally, we were able to successfully explain the different abilities of CYP2D6.1 and CYP2D6.17 to metabolize drugs in different ethnic groups with reference to their 3D-structures.