Background and objectives: Phenytoin, a widely used anti-epileptic drug, is metabolized mainly by CYP2C9 (90%) and partly by CYP2C19 (10%) to its major metabolite 5-(para-hydroxyphenyl)-5- phenylhydantoin (p-HPPH). The CYP2C9 and CYP2C19 genes encoding these enzymes are polymorphically expressed and most of the variants result in decreased metabolism of the respective substrates. The present study was undertaken to investigate the influence of the CYP2C9*2 and *3 as well as CYP2C19*2 and *3 variant genotypes on phenytoin hydroxylation in healthy subjects from south India.
Methods: A total of 27 healthy, unrelated, subjects were administered a single oral dose of 300 mg phenytoin. Four hours later, 5 ml of blood was collected and genotyped for CYP2C9*1, *2, *3, CYP2C19*1, *2 and *3 by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Phenytoin and the major metabolite p-HPPH were estimated by reverse phase HPLC. The metabolic ratio was calculated as concentration of phenytoin/p-HPPH.
Results: A significant correlation was observed between the CYP2C9 genotype and metabolic ratio of phenytoin/p-HPPH (r = 0.472, 95% CI 0.100 to 0.728; P = 0.01). While no association was found with CYP2C19 alone, a significant correlation was observed between the combined CYP2C9 and CYP2C19 genotypes and phenytoin metabolic ratio (r = 0.507, 95% CI 0.146 to 0.749; P< 0.01).
Interpretation and conclusion: CYP2C9*2 and *3 mutant alleles caused decreased hydroxylation of phenytoin in vivo, whereas the mutant alleles of CYP2C19 played only a minor role in the metabolism of phenytoin in subjects of our study. The results of present preliminary study needs to be confirmed with a larger sample.