Partnership with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes: Establishing an Advisory Committee for Pharmacogenetic Research.

Background: Inclusion of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations in pharmacogenetic research is key if the benefits of pharmacogenetic testing are to reach these communities. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) offers a model to engage these communities in pharmacogenetics.

Objectives: An academic-community partnership between the University of Montana (UM) and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) was established to engage the community as partners and advisors in pharmacogenetic research.

Pharmacogenetics in American Indian populations: analysis of CYP2D6, CYP3A4, CYP3A5, and CYP2C9 in the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

Objectives: Cytochrome P450 enzymes play a dominant role in drug elimination and variation in these genes is a major source of interindividual differences in drug response. Little is known, however, about pharmacogenetic variation in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations. We have developed a partnership with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) in northwestern Montana to address this knowledge gap.

Modified low density lipoproteins binding requires a lysine cluster region in the murine macrophage scavenger receptor class A type II.

Atherosclerosis is a consequence of lipid deposition and foam cell formation in the arterial wall. Macrophage scavenger receptor A II is involved in the uptake of modified low density lipoproteins. It contains an extracellular conserved lysine cluster which has been proposed to form a positively charged groove that interacts with acetylated low density lipoproteins (AcLDL).