At least identical twins don’t have the same fingerprints, even though they have exactly the same genes that control the formation of their bodies.
This is because genetics alone do not shape our fingertips.
New research In the scientific journal Cell, it is shown that our very own patterns get their shape when the growth waves of the skin’s ridges collide with each other.
Fingertip patterns are formed from parallel ridges during fetal development.
Patterns resembling meandering stripes are mostly completed by the time a good four months of pregnancy have passed.
The most typical there are three shapes: loops, circular twists and arcs.
It is known that patterning gives grip to the hands and helps to sense different surface shapes.
However, the exact mechanism by which the patterns are created has been a mystery, so the University of Edinburgh set out to find out Denis Headon with colleagues.
The researchers used three-dimensional human cell cultures and mouse experiments as help, because ridges resembling the pattern of a human finger are formed on the toes of mice.
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If the fingertips are elongated and asymmetrical, the ridges are loop-shaped.
Researchers discovered that the development of patterns is controlled by two proteins in particular, one of which accelerates the formation of ridges and the other restrains it.
The third protein adjusts the size of the ridges and the distance between them. Anatomy also has an effect.
“In the development of various arcs, loops and spirals, not only molecular substances are essential. The way they are spread over the anatomy of the hand is also important,” Headon says For the scientific journal Nature.
The ridges grow in successive waves from the tip of the finger, in the middle and at the first joint.
Individual patterns twist into their shapes as these waves meet and interact with each other.
To the final to the pattern influence also the shape of the fingertip and the time when the ridges form.
For example, if the fingertips are elongated and asymmetrical, the ridges will be shaped like loops.
Wide and symmetrical fingertips develop circular patterns when ridges have started to form at an early stage. The development of the arc also has its own way.
Ridges growth follows a computer science pioneer Alan Turing the developmental biological mechanism outlined already in the 1950s, which he used to explain the growth of leaves in plants.
The mechanism produces periodic structures. In addition to fingertip patterns, these include, for example, zebra and some tropical fish stripes and leopard spots.
Published in Tiede magazine 4/23.
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