APOL1 and chronic kidney disease: Despite the smaller sample size, milder form of APOL1-associated kidney disease, and incomplete clinical data to classify and exclude unrelated causes for CKD in these cohorts, the findings revealed a direction-consistent protective effect for the p.N264K variant among individuals with the G2-APOL1-HR genotypes, by which p.N264K carriers were 3.3 times less likely to have CKD3 or worse (OR = 0.30, 95%CI: 0.11–0.83, CMH P = 0.023, Supplementary Table 2 and Supplementary Fig. 4C), with this likely representing an underestimation due to confounders as mentioned above.