Markers / Gene
ABCC11
One position in this gene is readable from a home DNA test.
Earwax type and underarm odour
rs17822931 · chr16:48,258,198 · C/T · evidence: established
One change in a membrane transporter decides whether your earwax is wet or dry, and the same switch largely decides whether your underarms produce much odour. It is one of the cleanest single-gene traits in the human genome.
| If you carry | What it means |
|---|---|
| No copies | Wet earwax, typical body odour |
| One copy | Wet earwax, typical body odour |
| Two copies | Dry earwax, little body odour |
| Ancestry group | T (the effect version) | |
|---|---|---|
| African | 1.2% | |
| American | 14.0% | |
| East Asian | 78.0% | |
| European | 13.6% | |
| South Asian | 48.2% |
1000 Genomes Project phase 3, via Ensembl, retrieved 2026-09-23. These groupings are coarse and flatten a great deal of internal diversity, particularly within Africa. A variant being common somewhere tells you where a piece of your ancestry probably comes from, and nothing else.
If you have taken a home DNA test, these positions are already in your file.
Read my file