It is believed that the legends of vampires were inspired by the cases of a rare hereditary disease, erythropoietic porphyria, from which ulcers appear on the skin after exposure to sunlight. This is reported by LIGA with reference to NakedScience.

In people suffering from this disease, the synthesis of hemoglobin.

This leads to anemia, protoporphyrins accumulate in the blood, which turn into porphyrins under the action of ultraviolet, and they in turn damage the skin cells, causing severe inflammation and ulcers.

Therefore, patients avoid sunlight and have to resort to blood transfusion.

Only recently, American physicians found that the cause of the development of "vampire" erythropoietic porphyria is a violation in the gene ClpX, although earlier the occurrence of the disease was associated with a violation in the FECH gene.

The ClpX gene is involved in a number of intracellular processes associated with the synthesis of proteins.