Markers / Gene
SOD2
One position in this gene is readable from a home DNA test.
The antioxidant enzyme inside your mitochondria
rs4880 · chr6:160,113,872 · A/G · evidence: moderate
Making energy from oxygen leaks reactive oxygen. SOD2 is the enzyme that clears it, and it has to be imported into the mitochondrion to work. This change alters the import signal, so the two versions arrive at different rates.
| If you carry | What it means |
|---|---|
| No copies | You have the alanine version on both copies |
| One copy | You carry one of each |
| Two copies | You have the valine version on both copies |
| Ancestry group | G (the effect version) | |
|---|---|---|
| African | 42.4% | |
| American | 58.4% | |
| East Asian | 12.5% | |
| European | 46.6% | |
| South Asian | 50.8% |
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