Drug-Related Genomics in Cancer and Immunological Diseases

Drug-related genes are defined as the genes which encode enzymes, transporters, and targets related to drug absorption, distribution, and metabolism to excretion. The studies on drug-related genomics in cancer and immunological diseases could enhance the understanding of the role of drug-related genes in the occurrence and development of cancer or immunological diseases. Pharmacogenomics research can help clinicians predict the efficacy of drugs in the body and avoid some side effects. In this respect, this special issue will add a few new points in the picture of drug-related genomics in cancer and immunological diseases. C. Liu et al. in " A promoter region polymorphism in PDCD-1 gene is associated with risk of rheumatoid arthritis in the Han Chinese population of Southeastern China " provide an association between PDCD-1 polymorphism rs36084323 and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) risk. The potential mechanism might be related to the association between unregulated expressions of PDCD-1 on activated CD4+T cells in RA patients. They showed that the SNP rs36084323 could be a biomarker of early diagnosis of RA and a suitable indicator of utilizing PDCD-1 inhibitor for the treatment of RA. In the study " Upregulated PD-1 expression is associated with the development of systemic lupus erythematosus, but not the PD-1.1 allele of the PDCD1 gene, " Q. Jiao et al. found that the PD-1 expression levels of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients were significantly increased compared with those of the healthy controls. Furthermore, the unregulated PD-1 expression levels in SLE patients were greatly associated with SLEDAI scores. These results suggest that increased expression of PD-1 may correlate with the pathogenesis of SLE, unregulated PD-1 expression may be a biomarker for SLE diagnosis, and PD-1 inhibitor may be useful for SLE treatment. The association between cytokines and cytokine receptors and psoriasis is discussed in " Genetic variations of cytokines and cytokine receptors in psoriasis patients from China " by X.-L. Li et al. They genotyped seven SNPs in candidate genes of six ILs and only the rs3212227 in the IL12B gene was found to be associated with psoriasis at genotypic level in the studied population. Furthermore, the studied Chinese population has extremely low minor allele frequency for IL23R. Together, the author discussed the unique genetic patterns in the Chinese population that may be in part responsible for the lower risk for psoriasis in this population. Nuclear factor-í µí¼…B was found to be associated with the pathogenesis of numerous …