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Differences in drug responses in individuals are partly due to genetic variations in pharmacogenes, which differ among populations. Here, genome sequencing of 171 unrelated Thai individuals from all regions of Thailand was used to call star alleles of 51 pharmacogenes by Stargazer, determine allele and genotype frequencies, predict phenotype and compare high-impact variant frequencies between Thai and other populations. Three control genes, EGFR, VDR, and RYR1, were used, giving consistent results. Every individual had at least three genes with variant or altered phenotype. Forty of the 51 pharmacogenes had at least one individual with variant or altered phenotype. Moreover, thirteen genes had at least 25% of individuals with variant or altered phenotype including SLCO1B3 (97.08%), CYP3A5 (88.3%), CYP2C19 (60.82%), CYP2A6 (60.2%), SULT1A1 (56.14%), G6PD (54.39%), CYP4B1 (50.00%), CYP2D6 (48.65%), CYP2F1 (46.41%), NAT2 (40.35%), SLCO2B1 (28.95%), UGT1A1 (28.07%), and SLCO1B1 (26.79%). Allele frequencies of high impact variants from our samples were most similar to East Asian. Remarkably, we identified twenty predicted high impact variants which have not previously been reported. Our results provide information that contributes to the implementation of pharmacogenetic testing in Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries, bringing a step closer to personalized medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To maximize the potential of genomics in medicine, it is essential to establish databases of genomic variants for ethno‐geographic groups that can be used for filtering and prioritizing candidate pathogenic variants. Populations with non‐European ancestry are poorly represented among current genomic variant databases. Here, we report the first high‐density survey of genomic variants for the Thai population, the Thai Reference Exome (T‐REx) variant database. T‐REx comprises exome sequencing data of 1092 unrelated Thai individuals. The targeted exome regions common among four capture platforms cover 30.04 Mbp on autosomes and chromosome X. 345 681 short variants (18.27% of which are novel) and 34 907 copy number variations were found. Principal component analysis on 38 469 single nucleotide variants present worldwide showed that the Thai population is most genetically similar to East and Southeast Asian populations. Moreover, unsupervised clustering revealed six Thai subpopulations consistent with the evidence of gene flow from neighboring populations. The prevalence of common pathogenic variants in T‐REx was investigated in detail, which revealed subpopulation‐specific patterns, in particular variants associated with erythrocyte disorders such as the HbE variant in HBB and the Viangchan variant in G6PD. T‐REx serves as a pivotal addition to the current databases for genomic medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]