rs1426654
One of the biggest switches for skin tone
What this position does
A single letter change in SLC24A5 accounts for a large share of the difference in skin pigmentation between European and West African populations. It is one of the strongest single-gene effects on any visible human trait, and it swept through Europe in the last ten thousand years.
What each result means
| If you carry | What it means |
|---|---|
| No copies of the effect version GG | Darker skin version, two copies Two copies of the version that keeps pigment production high. This is the ancestral form, carried by most people worldwide. |
| One copy AG | One of each One copy of each version, which typically gives an intermediate result. |
| Two copies AA | Lighter skin version, two copies Two copies of the lighter-skin version. Nearly every person of European descent has this, and it is one reason pale skin is close to universal there. |
Worth knowing. Skin tone is set by many genes together. This is the single biggest one, and it still explains only part of the picture.
How common each version is
| Ancestry group | A (the effect version) | |
|---|---|---|
| African | 7.4% | |
| American | 58.9% | |
| East Asian | 1.2% | |
| European | 99.7% | |
| South Asian | 68.5% |
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.
How many people carry each result
| Ancestry group | GG | AG | AA |
|---|---|---|---|
| African | 568 / 661 | 88 / 661 | 5 / 661 |
| European | 0 / 503 | 3 / 503 | 500 / 503 |
| East Asian | 492 / 504 | 12 / 504 | 0 / 504 |
| South Asian | 67 / 489 | 174 / 489 | 248 / 489 |
| American | 77 / 347 | 131 / 347 | 139 / 347 |
Counts of people, not modelled frequencies: every one of the 2,504 individuals sequenced by the 1000 Genomes Project phase 3, tallied by the genotype they carry. Deriving these from allele frequencies instead would assume random mating inside each group and undercount the homozygotes.
How to find out which you have
If you have taken a test with 23andMe, AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, Family Tree DNA, TellMeGen or Living DNA, this position is very likely already in the raw data file they gave you. You do not need another test.
One thing to watch if you look it up by hand: testing companies report some positions from one DNA strand and some from the other, and the file does not say which. Read the letters as they appear and you will get the opposite of the truth for some positions. Sequencings resolves that automatically.
Source
Coordinates and allele pair verified against Ensembl GRCh37. Direction of effect verified against VEP protein consequences or 1000 Genomes population frequency. Category: Trait.
Where this fits
Common questions
What is rs1426654?
rs1426654 is a position in the SLC24A5 gene on chromosome 15. A single letter change in SLC24A5 accounts for a large share of the difference in skin pigmentation between European and West African populations. It is one of the strongest single-gene effects on any visible human trait, and it swept through Europe in the last ten thousand years.
What does it mean if I have AA at rs1426654?
Lighter skin version, two copies. Two copies of the lighter-skin version. Nearly every person of European descent has this, and it is one reason pale skin is close to universal there.
What does it mean if I have GG at rs1426654?
Darker skin version, two copies. Two copies of the version that keeps pigment production high. This is the ancestral form, carried by most people worldwide.
How do I find out my rs1426654 genotype?
If you have taken a home DNA test, this position is very likely in the raw data file you were given. Sequencings reads that file in your browser without uploading it, and resolves which DNA strand each position was reported from, which is the step most manual lookups get wrong.
This is reference information, not medical advice, and not a diagnosis. See the medical disclaimer. Category: Trait.