As noted elsewhere (Arias et al., 2006, Ray et al., 2012a), individuals from different ethnic backgrounds show varying allele frequencies for the A118G SNP of the OPRM1 gene, which in turn may impact the application of personalized medicine approaches to optimizing naltrexone treatment for alcoholism (Tate and Goldstein, 2004). To that end, based on publicly available bioinformatics resources (HapMap in particular), the kappa and delta tSNPs that showed pharmacogenetic effects in this study also vary in minor allele frequency by ethnicity. Specifically, while the G allele of OPRD1^4 is present in approximately 43% of Whites, it is much more frequently observed in people of African ancestry (about 73%). For OPRK1^2, the C allele is present in about 28% of those with European ancestry, but it is more frequent among those of African descent (about 65%) and among Han Chinese (about 43%). Therefore it stands to reason that these preliminary findings, if supported, may be useful in addressing naltrexone personalized medicine in ethnic minorities.
