Purpose: Psoriasis is a chronic recurring autoimmune skin disease with a complex etiology and chronic progression; however, its molecular mechanisms remain unclear.
Patients and Methods: We performed transcriptomic analysis to profile the mRNA expression of psoriatic lesions (PL) and non-lesion (NL) tissues from psoriasis patients along with normal skin from healthy donors. RT-qPCR was used to validate the mRNA expression profiles.
Results: A total of 237 differentially expressed genes were screened and identified by RNA sequencing. GO and KEGG analysis indicated that these DEGs were enriched in the PPAR signaling pathway and intermediate filament cytoskeleton. For PPAR signaling pathway, the expression of five genes, including ADIPOQ, AQP7, PLIN1, FABP4 and LPL, were all significantly decreased in psoriatic lesions compared to normal skin by RT-qPCR. There is a clear difference between psoriatic lesions and non-lesion in the expression of ADIPOQ, AQP7 and LPL. For intermediate filament cytoskeleton, including KRT27, KRT25, KRT71, KRT86 and KRT85 were significantly decreased in the psoriasis lesions, showing agreement with the RNA-seq data.
Conclusion: This study revealed a significant difference between the mRNA expression profiles of PL, NL tissue and normal skin.
Keywords: psoriasis, RNA-sequencing, PPAR signaling pathway, keratin