Markers / Gene
KCNJ11
One position in this gene is readable from a home DNA test.
KCNJ11, the channel that sulfonylurea drugs act on
rs5219 · chr11:17,409,572 · C/T · evidence: established
This potassium channel is the trigger that tells a pancreatic cell to release insulin. It is also exactly what the sulfonylurea class of diabetes drugs binds to, which makes this one of the few diabetes variants with a direct line to treatment.
| If you carry | What it means |
|---|---|
| No copies | You have the lower-risk version on both copies |
| One copy | You carry one higher-risk copy |
| Two copies | You have the higher-risk version on both copies |
| Ancestry group | T (the effect version) | |
|---|---|---|
| African | 2.3% | |
| American | 29.3% | |
| East Asian | 33.8% | |
| European | 35.3% | |
| South Asian | 39.6% |
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.
Read my file