Why are alleles for SNPs in genes such as SOD2, COMT, and MAO reported differently from other services such as Genetic Genie?Updated 4 months ago

These genes and their mutations are somewhat special cases, since any allele, be it wild or variant, has risks and benefits. This quality makes the assignment of risk allele difficult. 

We decided to represent the wild type as (-) and the variant type as (+). Minus means ancestral/ generally most common allele and Plus means mutated/generally less common allele. 

Other genetic reporting services may have taken the approach to assign risk allele in the opposite way, as their understanding at the time their report was created seemed to indicate that the ancestral allele carried more risk. 

Scientists may differ in how they interpret the data, there is no such thing as "immutable truth". As the science evolves, so too do reports such as these. Therefore, allele risk attribution made several years ago based on available science may change over time in light of current research.