An improved method for genotyping of N-acetyltransferase polymorphism by polymerase chain reaction.

Polymorphic N-acetyltransferase in human liver catalyzes N-acetylation of various arylamine-containing drugs and environmental chemicals. To accelerate the pharmacogenetic and ecogenetic studies of N-acetyltransferase polymorphism, we have developed a rapid and simple method for genotyping using a polymerase chain reaction based restriction fragment length polymorphism. This method distinguishes four kinds of allele of the N-acetyltransferase gene using a single polymerase chain reaction starting with a set of primers, followed by successive Asp718, BamHI and TaqI digestions, and then running the samples on a single electrophoresis lane. This method allows us to determine ten different genotypes easily and reliably.