A single intradermal injection of IFN- induces a psoriasis-like state in both non-lesional psoriatic and healthy skin

Psoriasis is a chronic, debilitating, immune-mediated inflammatory skin disease. As IFN- is involved in many cellular processes, including activation of T cells and dendritic cells (DCs), antigen processing and presentation, cell adhesion and trafficking, and cytokine and chemokine production, IFN--producing Th1 cells were proposed to be integral to the pathogenesis of psoriasis. Recently, IFN- was shown to enhance IL-23 and IL-1 production by DCs and subsequently induce Th17 cells, important contributors to the inflammatory cascade in psoriasis lesions. To determine if IFN- indeed induces the pathways leading to the development of psoriasis lesions, a single intradermal injection of IFN- was administered to an area of clinically normal, non-lesional skin of psoriasis patients and biopsies were collected 24 hours later. Although there were no visible changes in the skin, IFN- induced molecular and histological features characteristic of psoriasis lesions. IFN- increased a number of differentially expressed genes in the skin, including many chemokines concomitant with an influx of T cells and inflammatory DCs. Furthermore, inflammatory DC products TNF, iNOS, IL-23, and TRAIL were present in IFN--treated skin. Thus, IFN-, which is significantly elevated in non-lesional skin compared to healthy skin, appears to be a key pathogenic cytokine that can induce the inflammatory cascade in psoriasis.

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Johnson-Huang LM, Suárez-Fariñas M, Pierson KC, Fuentes-Duculan J, Cueto I, Lentini T, Sullivan-Whalen M, Gilleaudeau P, Krueger JG, Haider AS, Lowes MA