The expression of interleukin-17, interferon-gamma, and macrophage inflammatory protein-3 alpha mRNA in patients with psoriasis vulgaris

Abstract

To investigate the role of Interleukin-17 (IL-17), Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), and macrophage inflammatory protein-3 alpha (MIP-3α) in the pathogenesis of psoriasis, reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to semi-quantitatively analyze the mRNA expression of IL-17, IFN-γ, and MIP-3α in 31 psoriatic lesions and 16 normal skin tissues. The results showed that the mRNA of the three cytokines was present in all specimens. And the expression level of IL-17 mRNA in skin lesions was 1.1416±0.0591, which was significantly higher than that in normal controls (0.8788±0.0344,PPP<0.001). These findings indicate that up-regulated expression of IL-17, IFN-γ, and MIP-3α might be involved in the pathogenesis of psoriasis.