ABSTRACT
Objective Isobaric tag for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ) was applied for the quantitative analysis of serum protein in psoriasis vulgaris patients with damp heat syndrome and healthy volunteers to explore the differentially expressed proteins, thus to reveal the nature of damp heat syndrome from the proteomics level.Methods The serum from 15 psoriasis vulgaris patients with damp heat syndrome and 10 healthy volunteers was purified and treated with removal of abundance. After separation with sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electropheresis (SDS-PAGE) and hydrolysis of peptide specific iTRAQ marker enzyme, the differentially expressed proteins of serum samples were identified by tandem mass spectrometry. Results A total of 787 proteins were identified, and 718 proteins had the functional annotation showed by gene ontology ( GO) in psoriasis vulgaris pa tients with damp heat syndrome. A total of 651 differentially expressed proteins were identified by compared with healthy volunteers ( P<0.05) , and markedly significant difference was shown in 418 proteins ( P<0.01) . Conclusion Psoriasis vulgaris patients with damp heat syndrome have differentially expressed proteins which are different from those in the healthy volunteers, but which kind of protein being specific for damp-heat psoriasis vulgaris as well as the relation between the damp heat symptoms and proteins still need to be further studied.