In northwest Bangladesh's Rajshahi district, about ten members of one family share a remarkable trait: no fingerprints on their hands or feet. This striking feature sheds light on adermatoglyphia, a profoundly rare congenital condition.
Apu Sarker, a 22-year-old from a village in Rajshahi, faces daily hurdles. Securing a driver's license, passport, or even a phone SIM card proves difficult. His national ID card notes "no footprints" in the fingerprint section, as reported by India's Northeast Now on December 26, 2020.
Apu lives with adermatoglyphia, a genetic disorder marked by the absence of dermatoglyphs—fingerprints and palm prints—on hands and feet. Nine other family members share this condition.
Orphanet, the authoritative portal on rare diseases, describes isolated congenital adermatoglyphia as "a rare genetic developmental disorder occurring during embryogenesis. It is characterized by the absence of epidermal ridges on the palms and soles of the feet, which leads to the absence of fingerprints, without any other manifestation. It is associated with a restriction in the number of openings of the sweat glands and hypohidrosis in the palms and soles of the feet."
Fingerprints typically form between the 16th and 25th weeks of pregnancy, when skin is pliable and influenced by genetics and the intrauterine environment. In adermatoglyphia, a mutation in the SMARCAD1 gene disrupts the protein needed for ridge development. As a dominant gene, a single altered copy triggers the condition, explaining its presence across multiple family generations.
A 2011 study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology identified just four affected families worldwide. The condition gained attention in 2007 when a Swiss individual was flagged at U.S. customs for lacking fingerprints, prompting DNA analysis of their family. Researchers later dubbed it the "immigration disease."
