ALLELIC VARIANTS AT ALCOHOL METABOLISING GENES IN TURKISH POPULATION

Abstract

Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) play central roles in the initial stages of alcohol metabolism. Polymorphisms with physiological significance exist in the ADH and ALDH genes to different degrees in different ethnic groups. Specifically, ADH1B*2 (ADH1B*47His), ADH1B*3 (ADH1B*369His), ADH1C*1 (ADH1C*349Ile) and ALDH2*2 (ALDH2*487Lys) variants have been shown to confer protection against alcohol toxicity and dependence. During the past decade, the prevalence of alcoholism in Turkey has significantly increased with the economic development and industrialization of the country. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate genetic differences in polymorphisms of alcohol-metabolizing enzymes, ADH1B, ADH1C and ALDH2, for Turkish population by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method. Also, the frequencies of alleles were compared with those obtained from different populations. In conclusion; the allelic frequencies for ADH1B*2, ADH1B*3, ADH1C*1 and ALDH2*2 were observed 0.049, 0.004, 0.397 and 0.018, respectively. Turkish people resemble Caucasians while being different from Asians in terms of the distribution of ADH1B* 2, ADH1C*1, ALDH2*2 alleles. Furthermore, Turkish people have less ADH1B* 3 allele than the other populations, especially African-Americans.