Feng, Xiaodong_ Xie, Hong-Guang - Applying pharmacogenomics in therapeutics-CRC Press (2016)

Principles of Pharmacogenetic Biotechnology and Testing in Clinical Practice
45
Nevertheless, it is foreseeable that in the near future, NGS will be an indispensable
approach to probing genetic changes relevant to numerous diseases.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Today, traditional nucleic acid analysis methods, such as the Sanger sequencing
method, and more advanced technologies, such as NGS, coexist to serve different
needs in biomedical analyses. These new technologies have expanded the use
of pharmacogenomics in numerous medical areas, including but not limited to
pain management, cardiology, oncology, pathology, and psychiatry. In forensic
pathology, these technologies may be used to determine the cause of nontraumatic
deaths (Karch 2007). Pharmacogenomic tests are also used to identify cancer
patients who are most likely to respond to certain cancer drugs (Lee and McLeod
2011). For psychiatric patients, pharmacogenomic tests will provide tools for better
drug selection and more informative side effect amelioration (Gardner et al.
2014). Similarly, pharmacogenomics will improve the treatment of cardiovascular
disorders, where a patient’s possible response to drugs, including warfarin, clopidogrel,
β blockers, and statins, may be determined by identifying the genotypes
of genes involved in the efficacy and metabolism of the affected drugs (Turner
and Pirmohamed 2014). In the near future, technological advances will likely
transform pharmacogenetics into an indispensable tool for pharmacists and clinicians
to evaluate, guide, and monitor various treatments for a broad variety of
diseases.
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Which of the following is not a common genetic variation?
a. DNA methylation
b. Nucleotide insertions and deletions
c. Copy-number variations
d. Chromosomal rearrangements
2. Which pair of patients will most likely have similar responses to a drug?
a. Two strangers
b. A married couple
c. Father and son
d. Identical twins
3. Sanger sequencing is also called:
a. Chemical sequencing method
b. Chain-termination method
c. Shotgun sequencing method
d. TaqMan method
4. A polymerase chain reaction requires the following ingredient:
a. ATP
b. RNA
c. RNA polymerase
d. DNA polymerase