Pharmacogenomics and systems biology of membrane transporters.

Membrane transporters are essential for fundamental cellular functions and normal physiological processes. These molecules influence drug absorption and distribution, and play key roles in drug therapeutic effects. A primary goal of current research in drug discovery and development is to fully understand the interaction between transporters and drugs at both system level and individual level for personalized therapy. Pharmacogenomics studies the genetic basis of the individual variations in response to drug therapy, whereas systems biology provides the understanding of biological processes at the system level. The integration of pharmacogenomics with systems biology in membrane transporter study is necessary to solve complex problems in diseases and drug effects. Such integration provides insight to key issues of pharmacogenomics and systems biology of membrane transporters. These key issues include the correlations between structure and function, genotype and phenotype, and systematic interactions between different transporters, between transporters and other proteins, and between transporters and drugs. The exploration in these key issues may ultimately contribute to the personalized medicine with high efficacy but less toxicity, which is the overall goal of pharmacogenomics and systems biology.