MAF vs VAF

Question

[lauren.wahyudi]

Hi all.. Anyone can help explaining the difference between MAF (mutant allele) and VAF (variant allele) frequency? Thanks

[grant.hovhannisyan]

Could be Multiple Ambiguous Formats ...

[WouterDeCoster]

As far as I know the 'M' in MAF means minor and not mutant. I think VAF and MAF are the same.

[Sean Davis]

Note that even "minor allele frequency" is overloaded here. In a traditional sense, minor allele frequency refers to the frequency of an allele in a population of patients from a germline sampling. The variant allele frequency is typically used in a cancer setting to describe the proportion of reads with the variant allele within a single patient. The best option is to define what you mean very specifically; use in the literature is not a good guide, as is evidenced by the comments here.

[Len Trigg]

Yes, and I would favour the term Variant Allele Fraction (or Variant Allelic Fraction) rather than Variant Allele Frequency for this reason too!

[Kevin Blighe]

Looks like the MAF acronym is being repeatedly hijacked!

There is:

• MAF, minor allele frequeny
• MAF, mutation annotation format
• MAF, mutant allele fraction

Edit: As per Wouter's ultimate conclusion, you can consider mutant allele fraction and VAF as the same. Minor allele frequency is more used in GWAS studies.

[kloetzl]

Don't forget the Multiple Alignment Format.