A global gene expression analysis of the peripheral blood mononuclear cells reveals the gene expression signature in psoriasis

Abstract

Background: Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that affects approximately 1~3% of the general population.

Objective: We performed cDNA microarray analysis with using the dendrimer labelling method to investigate the gene expression profile in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of psoriatic patients.

Methods: The peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 5 patients with psoriasis and 8 control subjects were used in the gene expression analyses of psoriasis.

Results: We identified 212 differentially expressed genes that showed at least a two-fold induction and/or reduction in psoriatic patients. Among those, 63 genes, including CD44, CD56 and IL7R, were induced, while 139 genes, including the sphingosine kinase 1 and p16-INK genes, were reduced in the psoriatic patients.

Conclusion: We can speculate that these genes may have a role for the pathogenesis of psoriasis via their affecting different cellular functions. Our results suggest a possible mechanism by which activated immune cells migrate from the blood to the skin in psoriatic patients, and we provide novel putative targets for developing drugs to treat psoriasis.

Keywords: Cell adhesion; Microarray; Peripheral blood mononuclear cells; Psoriasis.

Fig. 1

The gene expression profile of the PBMCs from the 5 psoriatic patients. Each row represents a gene; each column shows the expression for the 212 genes expressed by each individual. The color red indicates the up-regulated genes in the psoriatic patients, while the color green indicates the down-regulated genes in the psoriatic patients.