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American Journal of Human Genetics
Look, ma, no fingerprints!
The upside of adermatoglyphia: You may have a bright future in crime.
The rare skin condition causes some people to be born without fingerprints, and it’s the subject of a new study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The report explores the underlying cause of the condition and underscores the usefulness of rare genetic mutations as a tool for investigating unknown aspects of biology.
Adermatoglyphia “is apparently exceedingly rare, although it may be under-diagnosed due to the fact it does not affect, significantly, the health status of the patients,” explains senior study author, Dr. Eli Sprecher from Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel.
Human skin has ridges, called dermatoglyphs, that are present on the fingers, palms, toes and the soles of our feet. The dermatoglyphs on the finger tips are better known as fingerprints.
You may not know it, but fingerprints help us perceive fine sensations at the tips of our fingers. You’re probably more familiar with the “CSI” aspect of finger prints, their importance in establishing identity. In some circles, adermatoglyphia has been nicknamed "immigration delay disease" since affected individuals report difficulties entering countries that require fingerprint recording.
To better understand the genetics of fingerprint formation, Dr. Sprecher and his colleagues studied a large Swiss family with adermatoglyphia. Affected members of the family had displayed an absence of fingerprints since birth and, according to the study, this absence was associated with a reduced number of sweat glands.
Researchers pinpointed a mutation in the gene SMARCAD1 as the root cause. The protein encoded by the gene is thought to control the expression of a large number of target genes associated with development. More specifically, the group demonstrated the existence of a short version of SMARCAD1 that was exclusively expressed in the skin and was mutated in individuals with the disease.
"Taken together, our findings implicate a skin-specific version of SMARCAD1 in the regulation of fingerprint development," concludes Dr. Sprecher, who goes on to say SMARCAD1 may target genes involved in both fingerprint and sweat gland development. He continues, "Further, as abnormal fingerprints are known to sometimes herald severe disorders, our finding may also impact the understanding of additional diseases affecting not only the skin."
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it would still be easy to find them... just look for the guy without fingerprints
The problem is, without fingerprints, the police would assume their suspect wore gloves. They would never think to look for a person without fingerprints.
My aunt actually had a fingerprint issue. She used to be a teacher, and they required all teachers to be fingerprinted. She does actually have fingerprints when you look at her fingers, but her ridges are so shallow, that what is left behind on contact with objects is just a smudge. So when they put ink on her fingers to take the prints, all they could ever get were smudges. Modern technology probably can get her fingerprints from a scanner type machine, but it still would be useless since in real world applications, she doesn't leave prints, only smudges.
Certain health conditions cause fingerprints to become very shallow. I know from personal experience that includes thyroid conditions, but there are probably others. Modern technology has actually made it harder for those with this problem who have to be fingerprinted for work because they still take the prints the same way, but instead of storing the physical print, they scan them electronically into a computer for permanent records, and the computer automatically rejects them.
Hmm, how would they find them then? Or admit them into prison? I think con-artists are drooling as they read this article... :)
aliens:)
The title of this post is striking, but the scientific finding may not be very significant. A lot of this kind of research is nowadays going on in life sciences. That there are people who do not have finger prints was known to me when I was an undergrad. In any collective phenomenon, statistics is very important before one can arrive at a definite conclusion. The study was made only on one Swiss family.
Anybody with half a brain knows to wear latex gloves, so not having fingerprints just enables them to be lazy!
So do people who lack fingerprints also lack toeprints?
My GOD........We are running out of jobs, running out of "WWW's" and now running out of finger prints. What's a country to do? Maybe we should follow the lead of China and do what they are doing or have done. Maybe we should get down in the trenches as they did and steal our jobs back just like they stole them from us. What's good for the all powerful "Chinese Goose" is just as good for the "American Gander" considering that we had it first so we know it is good for us.
I would imagine that even without fingerprints, the finger tips would have some type of singularly indentifiable marks...
They still leave DNA, though. Within the next 20 years at most, DNA will replace fingerprints worldwide as the main reliable method of identification.
Unless you wear a clean suit (as in clean room) and blow off any dirt, dust, pollen, etc... before entering the crime scene, you are leaving traces that even if modern day forensics can't find, there's a good chance that that technology will improve before the statue of limitations on your criminal activity does to reinspect initially gathered evidence.