Life Without A Fingerprint : The Immigration delay disease
Fingerprints have been known as the universal identification tool in the society. For example, sometimes passport is not enough to get you through the border of several countries and your fingerprints will be recorded for identification purposes. Fingerprints are also often presented in the court as a valid evidence to identify crime suspects and put them behind bars. But have you ever imagined living without your ‘identity’? In fact, this case does exist. Such condition in the medical term is known as adermatoglyphia, where the epidermal ridges are partially/completely missing and the biometric fingerprint scanner would not be able to recognize the fingerprints (Figure 1) .
Figure 1
Apparently, adermatoglyphia is such a rare disease that only 4 families have been known to be affected by this disease, and apart from its function as an identification tool, there is not much physiological function that fingerprint is known to have. However, Sprecher et al. (2011) mentioned in this paper that the presence of fingerprints may increase the gripping ability by increasing the friction force. Whether this difference is significant or not, there is another common feature that people with adermatoglyphia would usually have. According to Sprecher et al. (2011) and Burger et al. (2009), the histological analysis of the patients he was observing all shows a reduced capacity of hands transpiration (Figure 2). In conclusion, people with adermatoglyphia would usually have lesser number of sweat glands especially around the hand area (Burger et al. 2009) .
Figure 2 : The hand transpiration test
To examine what might be the cause of this rare condition, Sprecher et al. (2011) extracted the DNA from the person affected and their relatives, also some DNA from a person whose fingerprints are present. Through a series of process of PCR and DNA sequencing, 17 genes are suspected to be the main cause of adermatoglyphia. One of those is called SMARCAD1, and the short isoform of this gene is abundantly found in the skin fibroblasts. Sprecher et al. (2011) examined closely at this particular gene, and found mutation in one of the base that composes SMARCAD1. The DNA sequencing graph showed a clear representation of the transversion, where a guanine base is replaced with an unknown nucleotide compared to the DNA sequencing result of normal person (See Figure 3).
Figure 3. The mutation noted by the red arrow
This sequence change is believed to inactivate the first exon of the gene, hence interrupts the skin formation process. As mentioned before, people with adermatoglyphia would usually be associated with reduced hand transpiration capacity, and therefore Sprecher et al (2011) speculates that this gene might also have something to do with sweat gland development. However, it has not been scientifically proven and their research was more focused on what causes the fingerprint absence in people with adermatoglyphia. Now that we know why, hopefully none of the criminals in the world would get a SMARCAD1 gene mutation – it would be very beneficial for them don’t you think!
Fingerprints have been known as the universal identification tool in the society. For example, sometimes passport is not enough to get you through the border of several countries and your fingerprints will be recorded for identification purposes. Fingerprints are also often presented in the court as a valid evidence to identify crime suspects and put them behind bars. But have you ever imagined living without your ‘identity’? In fact, this case does exist. Such condition in the medical term is known as adermatoglyphia, where the epidermal ridges are partially/completely missing and the biometric fingerprint scanner would not be able to recognize the fingerprints (Figure 1) .
Figure 1
Apparently, adermatoglyphia is such a rare disease that only 4 families have been known to be affected by this disease, and apart from its function as an identification tool, there is not much physiological function that fingerprint is known to have. However, Sprecher et al. (2011) mentioned in this paper that the presence of fingerprints may increase the gripping ability by increasing the friction force. Whether this difference is significant or not, there is another common feature that people with adermatoglyphia would usually have. According to Sprecher et al. (2011) and Burger et al. (2009), the histological analysis of the patients he was observing all shows a reduced capacity of hands transpiration (Figure 2). In conclusion, people with adermatoglyphia would usually have lesser number of sweat glands especially around the hand area (Burger et al. 2009) .
Figure 2 : The hand transpiration test
To examine what might be the cause of this rare condition, Sprecher et al. (2011) extracted the DNA from the person affected and their relatives, also some DNA from a person whose fingerprints are present. Through a series of process of PCR and DNA sequencing, 17 genes are suspected to be the main cause of adermatoglyphia. One of those is called SMARCAD1, and the short isoform of this gene is abundantly found in the skin fibroblasts. Sprecher et al. (2011) examined closely at this particular gene, and found mutation in one of the base that composes SMARCAD1. The DNA sequencing graph showed a clear representation of the transversion, where a guanine base is replaced with an unknown nucleotide compared to the DNA sequencing result of normal person (See Figure 3).
Figure 3. The mutation noted by the red arrow
This sequence change is believed to inactivate the first exon of the gene, hence interrupts the skin formation process. As mentioned before, people with adermatoglyphia would usually be associated with reduced hand transpiration capacity, and therefore Sprecher et al (2011) speculates that this gene might also have something to do with sweat gland development. However, it has not been scientifically proven and their research was more focused on what causes the fingerprint absence in people with adermatoglyphia. Now that we know why, hopefully none of the criminals in the world would get a SMARCAD1 gene mutation – it would be very beneficial for them don’t you think!
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