Distribution of acetylator genotypes in the coloured population of the Western Cape region of South Africa

Recent advances in molecular biology techniques for polymorphic N-acetyltransferase (NAT2) enzyme characterisation, involving polymerase chain reaction (PCR) multiplication and restriction enzyme cleavage of DNA, were used to determine the distribution of acetylator genotypes and their constituent alleles in the coloured population of the Western Cape region of South Africa. The frequency of slow acetylator individuals in the trial population was q super(2) = 0.286, indicating a frequency of slow acetylator alleles of q = 0.535. The trial population could be shown to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in accordance with a trimodal pattern of distribution of acetylator genotypes.