Markers / Gene
APOL1
One position in this gene is readable from a home DNA test.
APOL1 and kidney disease
rs73885319 · chr22:36,661,906 · A/G · evidence: established
Two APOL1 variants protect against African sleeping sickness and, in two copies, substantially raise the risk of chronic kidney disease. They are essentially absent outside people of recent West African ancestry, and they explain a large part of the excess kidney disease burden in that population. This is one of the clearest cases where ancestry genuinely changes what a genetic result means.
| If you carry | What it means |
|---|---|
| No copies | You do not carry it, which is true of most people worldwide |
| One copy | One copy, which carries little or no raised kidney risk |
| Two copies | Two copies, which is worth telling your doctor about |
| Ancestry group | G (the effect version) | |
|---|---|---|
| African | 25.9% | |
| American | 0.9% | |
| East Asian | 0.0% | |
| European | 0.0% | |
| South Asian | 0.0% |
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.
Where this gene fits
If you have taken a home DNA test, these positions are already in your file.
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