High heritability of fingertip arch patterns in twin‐pairs

Abstract

The presence of an arch pattern on at least one fingertip has previously been suggested as an autosomal dominant trait with reduced penetrance, although the examination of pedigrees with this trait segregating is also consistent with major gene or multifactorial inheritance. We utilized fingerprints in 2,484 twin-pairs to estimate heritability for the presence of at least one fingertip arch pattern. The frequency of arches in the entire sample was 4.3% (2,175/50,850), 5.5% in females and 3.2% in males. There were 267 twin-pairs concordant for the presence of an arch on any finger. Structural equation modeling was performed to contingency table data for five groups (MZ male, MZ female, DZ male, DZ female, and unlike-sexed DZ). The best fitting model, which allowed for the prevalence of arches to differ between males and females, had a heritability of 91%. There was some evidence for small dominant genetic effects in females and shared environmental effects in males, although both were not significant. With such high heritability, the search for specific genes influencing the occurrence of fingertip arch patterns is justified.

Digital Dermatoglyphic Heritability Differences as Evidenced by a Female Twin Study

“…There is little information about the chorionicity in studies of dermatoglyphic heritability, for example, in relation to ridge counts (Reed et al, 1978), a-b ridges counts (Bogle et al, 1994) and arch pattern (Reed et al, 2006). The Reed et al (1978) study indicated that there was no chorionicity influence on the twin method in relation to left-hand thumb, since no significant difference between MCMZ and DCMZ twins was observed, whereas for the right hand thumb there was a significant difference between MCMZ and DCMZ twins and a chorionicity influence could occur.…”

“…The digital dermatoglyphics used for one of the most mature biometric technologies (fingerprints) have their general characteristics determined mainly by genes (Holt, 1960;Jain et al, 2002;Reed et al, 2006;Reed & Young, 1982;Sengupta & Karmakar, 2004). …”

“…The same principles may be applied to studies evaluating the heritability of dermatoglyphic traits (Martin et al, 1982a;Reed et al, 2006). This may be particularly interesting because dermatoglyphics can be used as indicators of genetic influences to other variables when they are related, for example, when studying anthropometric characteristics related with human health (Godfrey et al, 1993;Kahn et al, 2001).…”

Application of likelihood ratio and posterior probability density in sex estimation from level two fingerprint features among Hausa ethnic group

“…The tips of human digits are characterized with genetically and environmentally determined series of ridges and furrows, generally referred to as fingerprints (Cummins and Midlo 1943;Holt 1952;Holt 1968;Schaumann and Alter 1976;Reed et al 2006). Development of epidermal ridges is first seen in the 10 th -11 th weeks of gestation and is marked by cell proliferations in the basal layer of the epidermis (Mulvihill and Smith 1969;Babler 1978).…”

“…This detail is not specific enough to be applied for personal identification. It is mainly used by biological anthropologist to differentiate between population (Arrieta et al 2003;Scheil et al 2005;Dorjee et al 2015) and for the determination of heritability, ethnicity, and sex (Reed et al 2006;Adamu et al 2016). Level 2 features called minutiae refer to the shape, direction, and orientation of the trait that forms the friction ridges, and is used mainly for the purpose of establishing identity (Langenburg 2004;Nickell and Fischer 1999;Bennett and Perumal 2011).…”