Computational Systems Biology Methods and Protocols.7z

On the other hand, inherited genetic variants were also consid-

ered to be involved in treatment outcomes, especially for adverse

drug reactions. For instance, some patients will suffer life-

threatening myelosuppression after mercaptopurine treatment

with standard dosage. Thanks to the well understanding of drug

metabolic pathway of mercaptopurine [18], TPMT enzyme activity

was noticed to be negatively related to the toxic content (i.e.,

metabolites of mercaptopurine) in plasma in Caucasians, and the

germline variants (e.g., TPMT*3C) can largely explain the loss of

function in TPMT, which were found through screening of the

Fig. 2Molecular subtypes of childhood ALL

392 Heng Xu and Yang Shu