rs17822931
Earwax type and underarm odour
What this position does
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.
What each result means
| If you carry | What it means |
|---|---|
| No copies of the effect version CC | Wet earwax, typical body odour Two copies of the ancestral version. The transporter works, which means sticky earwax and the usual amount of underarm odour. |
| One copy CT | Wet earwax, typical body odour One copy of each. The working copy is dominant here, so wet earwax is the expected result. |
| Two copies TT | Dry earwax, little body odour Two copies of the non-functional version. Dry flaky earwax, and markedly less underarm odour. This is the majority genotype in East Asia and rare in Europe and Africa. |
How common each version is
| 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.
How many people carry each result
| Ancestry group | CC | CT | TT |
|---|---|---|---|
| African | 646 / 661 | 14 / 661 | 1 / 661 |
| European | 378 / 503 | 113 / 503 | 12 / 503 |
| East Asian | 36 / 504 | 150 / 504 | 318 / 504 |
| South Asian | 132 / 489 | 243 / 489 | 114 / 489 |
| American | 255 / 347 | 87 / 347 | 5 / 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.
Common questions
What is rs17822931?
rs17822931 is a position in the ABCC11 gene on chromosome 16. 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.
What does it mean if I have TT at rs17822931?
Dry earwax, little body odour. Two copies of the non-functional version. Dry flaky earwax, and markedly less underarm odour. This is the majority genotype in East Asia and rare in Europe and Africa.
What does it mean if I have CC at rs17822931?
Wet earwax, typical body odour. Two copies of the ancestral version. The transporter works, which means sticky earwax and the usual amount of underarm odour.
How do I find out my rs17822931 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.