Pharmacogenomic landscape of a Moroccan cohort: enhancing global diversity and addressing the North African gap

Pharmacogenomics (PGx) enables personalized therapy by considering individual genetic variation. However, North African populations remain underrepresented in global PGx databases despite their substantial and unique genetic diversity, which can strongly influence drug response. This study characterizes the pharmacogenomic landscape of 109 Moroccan individuals using whole-genome sequencing data. Across 8289 candidate pharmacogenes, we identified 129,021 novel variants, predominantly within DPYD, CYP2C19, and SLCO1B1, underscoring the region's considerable genomic diversity. Analysis of 17 clinically relevant pharmacogenes with established CPIC drug guidelines revealed the high prevalence of SLCO1B1*15, UGT1A1*80 + *28, CYP2C19*17, and VKORC1 rs9923231 alleles. Additionally, HLA-A and HLA-B genotyping identified frequent alleles (HLA-A*03:01, HLA-A*30:02, HLA-B*51:01) previously associated with adverse drug reactions. Collectively, these findings provide a foundational resource for population-specific pharmacogenomic interpretation and support the advancement of precision medicine in Morocco and across North Africa.