Gene Expression Analysis of Inflammatory Cytokines in Korean Psoriatic Patients = Gene Expression Analysis of Inflammatory Cytokines in Korean Psoriatic Patients

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Background: Although phenotypic heterogeneity of psor-iasis is suggested by the alternate activation of either T-helper (Th)1-related or Th17-related cytokines, little is known about the mRNA levels of inflammatory cytokines. Objective: To investigate whether there is differential expression of Th1-related and Th17-related inflammatory cytokine genes 1) between psoriatic patients and healthy controls, and 2) be-tween patients with different psoriasis phenotypes. Methods: Twenty-five patients with psoriasis (10 with guttate psoriasis and 15 with plaque psoriasis) and 5 healthy volunteers were enrolled in this study. The mRNA levels of circulating cyto-kines (interleukin [IL]-2, IL-12p40, interferon-γ, IL-17A, IL-22, and IL-23R) were measured by real-time reverse tran-scription polymerase chain reaction. Results: The compar-ison between psoriatic and healthy control samples revealed that IL-12p40, IL-17A, and IL-22 mRNA levels were sig-nificantly higher (approximately 4∼6 folds) in the patients with psoriasis. The mRNA levels of these six cytokines in the blood did not differ between the guttate and plaque psoriasis groups. Conclusion: We found that the mRNA levels of blood inflammatory cytokines (IL-12p40, IL-17A, and IL-22) were significantly elevated in patients with psoriasis com-pared to the levels in healthy controls, but they did not sig-nificantly differ between patients with guttate and plaque type psoriasis. (Ann Dermatol 29(4) 422∼426, 2017)