Solved: Why Some People Don't Have Fingerprints

A rare gene mutation may be the reason that a few people are born without fingerprints, a new study finds.The fingerprint-free disorder is casually known as "immigration delay disease," because some countries require fingerprinting for entry. The scientific name though, is adermatoglyphia.

In most people, fingerprints form within the womb, just 24 weeks into gestation. But in at least four families approximately the world, fingers are print-free. This might seem like a ticket to a being of consequence-free crime, but in fact, adermatoglyphia often comes through unpleasant side effects, including skin blistering and facial cysts.

Researchers at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center experienced a Swiss family affected by adermatoglyphia, comparing the genomes of the nine family members lacking fingerprints with the seven family members with prints.They traced the disarray to a gene mutation on chromosome 4. (Humans have 46 chromosomes in all, which come in 23 pairs, one half of every pair from the mother and the other half from the father.) The gene, SMARCAD1, controls an amount of other development-related genes. In the Swiss family, members with adermatoglyphia have a shortened version of SMARCAD1, uttered solely in the skin. The mutation as well reduces the number of sweat glands in the palms of the people with the disorder.