A study published in the latest edition of the journal PLOS one used gene expression microarray analysis of genetic data to compare the genetic similarities and differences between palmoplantar pustulosis psoriasis, palmoplantar pustular psoriasis, and psoriasis vulgaris.
The study, “Based on Molecular Profiling of Gene Expression, Palmoplantar Pustulosis and Palmoplantar Pustular Psoriasis Are Highly Related Diseases that Appear to Be Distinct from Psoriasis Vulgaris,” was led by investigators from Innovaderm, a clinical research organization specializing in dermatology, in collaboration with clinicians at Rockefeller University and Johnsons & Johnson’s Janssen Research Laboratory.
According to the researchers, there is a debate regarding the true existence of palmoplantar pustulosis and palmoplantar pustular psoriasis as separate clinical conditions in patients. This study was conducted with the aim of providing evidence that physicians and other healthcare providers could better use to treat patients by prescribing the most appropriate treatment.
To meet the study goals, researchers took skin biopsies from patients with palmoplantar pustulosis psoriasis, palmoplantar pustular psoriasis, and psoriasis vulgaris, as well as skin from patients without the conditions, and performed gene expression microarray analysis, a laboratory tool used to detect the expression of thousands of genes at the same time, on the tissue samples.
After analysis, the findings revealed that palmoplantar pustulosis psoriasis and palmoplantar pustular psoriasis could not be differentiated using gene expression microarray, which means that they are most likely not distinct clinical conditions. However, the analysis did show that both palmoplantar psoriasis conditions were distinctly different based on genetic analysis from psoriasis vulgaris.
“To our knowledge this is one of the first … to explore differences in patients with palmoplantar pustulosis psoriasis and palmoplantar pustular psoriasis,” the authors wrote. “We found that gene expression in palmoplantar pustulosis psoriasis and palmoplantar pustular psoriasis clustered together and it was not possible to differentiate palmoplantar pustulosis psoriasis and palmoplantar pustular psoriasis using micro-array analysis. Comparison of overall gene expression differences as well as comparisons between fold change expression of various genes did not show significant differences between palmoplantar pustulosis psoriasis and palmoplantar pustular psoriasis …
“This suggests that palmoplantar pustulosis psoriasis and palmoplantar pustular psoriasis cannot be differentiated based on gene expression … Larger studies including female-only and male-only patients are needed to confirm these findings,” they concluded.
