What Do The Speed Colors On My StrateGene Report Mean?

Most genetic reports focus on whether or not a gene has SNPs that are homozygous, heterozygous or wild-type. This information is not informative nor does it give you insight into what actions you should consider.

What you need to know is ‘How does this SNP influence my specific gene?’ 

Your StrateGene report uses speed dials with various colors making it easier to see how a SNP influences each gene. Your gene’s function may be slower, faster, intermediate, or complicated. There is a color associated with each speed.

Since genes work together, it’s important to see them together versus on their own. We display the colored speed dials on a pathway (a diagram of how a set of genes work together). Each pathway gives you an immediate idea of how each SNP is impacting its overall function. Are the SNPs and their associated speed dials slowing or speeding up certain areas of the pathway? What are the potential consequences of that?

Important: Speed dials only take into account the effect of the SNP. They do not take any lifestyle, environmental, nutritional or dietary influences. This is why we also include the epigenetic influences on each gene in orange and purple - not just the SNP speed dial.

After you get your quick glance of the speed dials and their associated colors, you must then click that particular gene. Clicking that gene gives you the ability to read the specific ‘notable variation’. The speed dial is just a fast way to get a quick and dirty understanding of your pathway as a whole. The notable variation gives you more precise information.

No speed is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It’s unique to you. It simply informs you how your genes are susceptible to working faster, slower or more typical. You don’t ‘fix’ speeds. You work with them. You optimize their speed depending on what health goal you are targeting.

For example, if you’re struggling with high histamine symptoms, you look at your histamine pathway. If you have an ‘orange’ HRH1 receptor SNP, then you may be more sensitive to histamine. This informs that you should work to have healthy histamine levels - not too high. If you have a ‘slow’ HNMT and ‘slow MAOA’ and ‘slow ALDH Family’ genes, then you may be more susceptible to higher histamine. A combination of a more sensitive histamine receptor and slower elimination of histamine may explain why you are so susceptible to various high histamine symptoms like seasonal allergies.

Orange = Fast

Orange indicates a faster gene function.  The SNPs found on that particular gene are speeding up the gene function in a certain way. 

For example, a gene may be faster because it is more sensitive to being produced, may be more sensitive to the cofactor or it may be more sensitive to the substrate. 

Purple = Slow

Purple indicates a slower gene function.  The SNPs found on that particular gene are slowing the gene function in a certain way. For example, a gene may be slower because it is less sensitive to being produced, less sensitive to cofactor concentration or less sensitive to various substrates.

Yellow = Intermediate

Yellow indicates an intermediate gene function in comparison to how the gene typically works. It’s not fast and it’s not slow. It’s in between. 

Do not assume that a yellow-colored speed dial is due to a heterozygous SNP. It may be. It may not be. That’s not what determines its speed.

A gene may be intermediate because another SNP combination - either homozygous, heterozygous, or wild type, may be faster or slower than what’s typical. 

Purple / Orange = Complicated

Sometimes you will notice both orange and purple associated with a particular gene which makes it a bit more ‘complicated’ to call.  

Complicated means a few things:

1. This particular gene has multiple SNPs found. One or more SNPs may be ‘fast’ and one or more SNPs may be slow or typical. It is not possible to ‘average’ them out. One cannot make an assumption that a combination of one slow SNP and one fast SNP means it’s now typical.
2. This particular SNP impacts the gene in various ways depending on various things. For example, look at your PON1 gene. A PON1 SNP impacts the PON1 gene to do some things faster and other things slower - depending on what job it is doing.
3. Research isn’t really clear so we cannot assume any speed.
4. This particular gene contains multiple SNPs and some were reported and some were not. If some SNPs couldn’t be reported, perhaps the speed couldn’t be determined. This is especially the case in haplotypes.

Blue circle = Nothing found

A gene surrounded by a thin blue circle marks genes that were tested for, but no SNPs were found.  StrateGene does not currently provide any information on that particular gene.

Green = Nothing found but information available

Green genes are nearly the same as the above genes surrounded by a thin blue circle.  No SNPs were found but StrateGene provides information on that particular gene.

Black circle = Not tested for

Genes surrounded by a plain black circle means there has been no testing done on these by StrateGene for one or more reasons:

1. these genes do not have sufficient research 
2. they have genetic variations but they are very rare 
3. they are associated with a serious health condition

In the case of StrateGene Upload Users of 23andme or Ancestry:

If you are uploading your raw data from 23andme or Ancestry, a black circle means that those genes were not included on their chips.

We developed StrateGene in order to bring more useful health-related, researched SNPs to the marketplace.