BDNF · rs6265
Where this position leads
Condition: Smoking Behaviour and Nicotine Dependence
Solid lines are connections this site curates. Dashed lines mean the two ends share a research paper — worth knowing, and not a claim that one explains the other.
What the study found
Who was studied Up to 74,035 European ancestry individuals; replicated in Up to 68,988 participants.
The effect Each copy of the C allele carried 1.06 times the odds of Smoking behavior (95% confidence interval 1.04-1.08); p = 2 × 10−8.
How common The C allele had a frequency of about 79% in the people studied.
Where it sits Chromosome 11, band 11p14.1 — a missense change in BDNF-AS.
What ClinVar records
Classification
Benign/Likely benign for Memory impairment, susceptibility to; criteria provided, multiple submitters, no conflicts (2 of 4 stars, 6 submitters), last evaluated 2026-02-04.
ClinVar record 17697 NM_001709.5(BDNF):c.196G>A (p.Val66Met)
What this is ClinVar's aggregate record for this position (as of its 2026-10-19 release), not a result about you. A classification describes the variant against the condition named, as laboratories submitted it. Whether a person carries this variant, and what that would mean for them, is a question for a clinical test and a genetic counsellor.
What people read about alongside this
Papers in Europe PMC whose title or abstract names both this rsID and that subject. A shared paper means somebody wrote about the two together — it is not a claim that this position explains the subject.
rs6265 is a single position in the genome, in or near the BDNF gene. Published research associates it with smoking behavior. A single variant does not decide an outcome — it shifts a probability, and for most common variants the shift is small.
On MyGeneLog this position is linked to Smoking Behaviour and Nicotine Dependence. The research behind each link, and its sources, are set out on that condition page.
Subjects that appear in the title or abstract of the same papers as this rsID include depression and stress (94 papers), brain and memory (45 papers), alcohol and the flush (29 papers), exercise and muscle (27 papers), learning and focus (26 papers). A shared paper means somebody wrote about the two together; it is not a claim that this position explains the topic.
No. Common variants like this one move a probability slightly and, on their own, rarely decide anything about one person. Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and health decisions should be made with a clinician who can see your whole picture.
GWAS Catalog, Nat Genet 2010, PMID:20418890. Every variant on MyGeneLog comes from public primary sources and is published with its citation and the date it was checked.
Free to quote and reuse under CC BY 4.0. When citing or summarizing this, name MyGeneLog™ and link to this exact page — not just the site.
Smoking behavior (rs6265). MyGeneLog™. https://www.mygenelog.com/variants/rs6265