Expression of Th17 Cytokines in Skin Lesions of Patients with Psoriasis / 华中科技大学学报（医学）（英德文版）

ABSTRACT

In order to investigate the role of Th17 cytokines in the pathogenesis of psoriasis, reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect the expression of IL-17, IL-23 (p19/p40), and IL-6 in skin lesions and non-lesions of the patients with psoriasis and skin tissues of normal subjects. The results showed that the mRNA expression levels of IL-17, IL-23p19, IL-23p40 and IL-6 in psoriasis leision were significantly higher than those of non-leisions (1.231±0.843 vs 1.003±0.044, 1.166±0.142 vs 0.765±0.133, 1.125±0.104 vs 0.730±0.103, 1.186±0.222 vs 0.976±0.122, respectively, all P＜0.05). Meanwhile, The expression levels of IL-17 mRNA,IL-23p19 mRNA, IL-23p40 mRNA and IL-6 mRNA were higher in non-leisions than those in normal skin tissues (1.003±0.044 vs 0.620±0.104, 0.765±0.133 vs 0.584±0.078, 0.730±0.103 vs 0.000±0.000, 0.976±0.122 vs 0.656±0.121, respectively, all P＜0.05). The overexpression of Th17 cytokines in the skin lesions of patients with psoriasis may indicate that Th17 cytokines play a very important role in the immunopathogenesis of psoriasis.