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Minor Allele Frequency (MAF)

Definition
AI-generated

The minor allele frequency is the frequency of the less common allele at a variant in a defined sample or population; for standard bi-allelic SNPs it lies in (0, 0.5].

Topics
Core genetics
Related
Allele Minor Allele Count (MAC) Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP)

Why it matters in GWAS

MAF thresholds control which variants enter analysis, drive power and model reliability, and classify variants as common, low-frequency, or rare; meta-analyses must harmonize whether frequencies are minor- versus alternate-allele based.

Example usage

"We excluded variants with MAF < 0.01 and duplicated the analysis at MAF 0.001 for sensitivity."

Allele Minor Allele Count (MAC) Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Statistical Power
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References

← Minor Allele Count (MAC) Miocene epoch →

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