So I am assuming that when a person gets a hand transplant, he/she inherits the fingerprints of the donor. Is this a correct ? Do the fingerprints change over time because of the transplant ?
Don’t need answer fast
That is correct.
The fingerprints of the transplanted hand will remain the same. There is no mechanism for fingerprints to change once they have developed. The fine details of fingerprints are not determined genetically but developmentally. Identical twins, who are identical genetically, have similar but not identical fingerprints.
Not only do the fingerprints not change, the DNA doesn’t change either. So your hand will have the same DNA as the donor.
Isn’t there anti-rejection medication that has to be taken until you die, or is that just for internal organs?
It would include hands or other transplanted parts that differ genetically from the host and that contain living cells. It would not include (for example) a bone graft that did not include living cells.
Over time, though, don’t the individual cells get replaced by ones from the donee? Or do the replacement cells retain the DNA of the donor?
Blood cells, immune cells etc., that flow around the body will be that of the recipient. Cell renewal in the tissues will come from stem cells embedded in the tissue, which will be the donor’s.
It’s not like there’s a central factory of new cells sending off shipments of e.g. skin cells to every part of the body. They’re created by cell division right where they’re needed.
When do fingerprints stop developing?
They are fully formed by the time you’re born. About 6 months in.
Years ago I sliced a small portion of the tip of my thumb off with a meat slicer. I quickly bandaged it and left it to heal. When I looked at it a few days later I was happy to see the piece hadn’t died but it had turned about 60 degrees from normal. It’s been healed for years now and when you look at it closely you can see ridges that are almost perpendicular to the rest of my thumb. The weird part is that at the edges of the wound, where there was scar tissue, it looks like my body made an attempt to link up the ridges and a few of them have some hard turns in them.