Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2021 Jul 2;18(1):135.
doi: 10.1186/s12985-021-01606-z.

Is there a relationship between psoriasis and hepatitis C? A meta-analysis and bioinformatics investigation

Yong Liu  1   2 , Sheng Nan Cui  3 , Meng Yao Duan  1 , Zhi Li Dou  1 , Yi Zhen Li  1 , Yi Xing Liu  1 , Ye Xia  1 , Jia Wei Zhang  1 , Xiao Ning Yan  4 , Dong Ran Han  5
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Is there a relationship between psoriasis and hepatitis C? A meta-analysis and bioinformatics investigation

Yong Liu et al. Virol J. .

Abstract

Background: The relationship between psoriasis and hepatitis C was previously controversial, so our purpose is to investigate this connection.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review of the case-control, cross-sectional and cohort studies examining the association between psoriasis and hepatitis C in PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane library databases and investigated the overlapping genes between psoriasis targets and hepatitis C targets using bioinformatics analysis. Based on overlapping genes and hub nodes, we also constructed the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network and module respectively, followed by the pathway enrichment analysis.

Results: We included 11 publications that reported a total of 11 studies (8 cross-sectional and 3 case-control). The case-control and cross-sectional studies included 25,047 psoriasis patients and 4,091,631 controls in total. Psoriasis was associated with a significant increase of prevalent hepatitis C (OR 1.72; 95% confidence interval [CI] (1.17-2.52)). A total of 389 significant genes were common to both hepatitis C and psoriasis, which mainly involved IL6, TNF, IL10, ALB, STAT3 and CXCL8. The module and pathway enrichment analyses showed that the common genes had the potential to influence varieties of biological pathways, including the inflammatory response, cytokine activity, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, Toll-like receptor signaling pathway, which play an important role in the pathogenesis of hepatitis C and psoriasis.

Conclusion: Patients with psoriasis display increased prevalence of hepatitis C and the basic related mechanisms between hepatitis C and psoriasis had been preliminarily clarified.

Keywords: Hepatitis C; Inflammatory response; Psoriasis; Toll-like receptor signaling pathway.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
PRISMA study flowchart
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
A Risk of bias assessment of included observational studies based on customized Newcastle–Ottawa Scale. B Forest plots showing significant prevalence of hepatitis C in psoriasis patients (odds ratio = 1.72, 95%, confidence interval 1.17 to 2.52)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
A The 389 overlapping genes between hepatitis C and psoriasis. B The results of hub nodes in current protein–protein interaction (PPI) network, the red square represented the top 10 targets, the line between two nodes represented the interaction. C The ranking of top 10 hub nodes based on degree. From red to yellow represented a decline in importance
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Gene ontology (GO) term enrichment including A biological process (BP), B cellular component (CC) and C molecular function (MF) enriched by hub genes, respectively. D Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) for hub genes
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Michalek IM, Loring B, John SM. A systematic review of worldwide epidemiology of psoriasis. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2017;31:205–212. doi: 10.1111/jdv.13854. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Elder JT, Bruce AT, Gudjonsson JE, et al. Molecular dissection of psoriasis: integrating genetics and biology. J Investig Dermatol. 2010;130:1213–1226. doi: 10.1038/jid.2009.319. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Melero JL, Andrades S, Arola L, Romeu A. Deciphering psoriasis. A bioinformatics approach. J Dermatol Sci. 2018;89(2):120–126. doi: 10.1016/j.jdermsci.2017.11.010. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Della Valle V, Maggioni M, Carrera C, Cattaneo A, Marzano AV, Damiani G. A mysterious abdominal pain during active psoriasis. Intern Emerg Med. 2018;13(6):889–892. doi: 10.1007/s11739-017-1765-y. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Damiani G, Franchi C, Pigatto P, Altomare A, Pacifico A, Petrou S, Leone S, Pace MC, Fiore M. Outcomes assessment of hepatitis C virus-positive psoriatic patients treated using pegylated interferon in combination with ribavirin compared to new Direct-Acting Antiviral agents. World J Hepatol. 2018;10(2):329–336. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v10.i2.329. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types