Duffy Blood Group

Your result, the one DNA position behind it, and what the research says.

4/10 confidence.

About Duffy Blood Group

Beyond ABO and Rhesus there are dozens of further blood group systems, defined by which proteins sit on the surface of red blood cells. Duffy is one of the oldest known. This position swaps a single building block of the Duffy protein, and that swap is what distinguishes the two main forms, called Fya and Fyb. The protein itself acts as a docking site for signaling molecules called chemokines, and it is the doorway one malaria parasite uses to enter red cells, which is why its frequencies differ so sharply between ancestries.

Good to know: Duffy is one of the classical blood group systems, alongside ABO and Rhesus. The protein is a docking site for chemokines, and a doorway used by one malaria parasite. A separate switch-off change, not read here, is common in African ancestry and overrides this.

Fun fact: The Duffy protein doubles as a docking site for chemokines, the signaling molecules immune cells follow, which is an odd second job for a blood group marker.

Discovery: The Duffy blood group was described in 1950 and named after the person in whom the antibody was first found.

The Variant

The single variant behind this trait

Gene: ACKR1

Variant (rsID): rs12075

Location: Chr 1:159,205,564

dbSNP rs12075

The studies

The Duffy antigen receptor for chemokines, ACKR1,- 'Jeanne DARC' of benign neutropenia (Rappoport N et al., British journal of haematology, 2019)

Distinct Transcript Isoforms of the Atypical Chemokine Receptor 1 (ACKR1)/Duffy Antigen Receptor for Chemokines (DARC) Gene Are Expressed in Lymphoblasts and Altered Isoform Levels Are Associated with Genetic Ancestry and the Duffy-Null Allele (Davis MB et al., PloS one, 2015)

Presence of "ACKR1/DARC null" polymorphism in Arabs from Jisr az-Zarqa with benign ethnic neutropenia (Elhadad D et al., Pediatric research, 2022)

Other lifestyle traits

Motion Sickness: A change in the promoter of an adrenaline receptor gene, linked to how easily travel brings on queasiness.

Leg to Torso Ratio: A marker between two genes on chromosome 5, linked to how a given height is divided between legs and torso.

Finger Length Ratio: A change near a growth-timing gene, linked to the relative length of the index and ring fingers.

Back to All Traits

Content updated September 2026.

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