Aim: Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease. To study its complex etiology, a psoriatic skin substitute model supplemented with a cytokine cocktail has been used.
Materials & methods: Reconstructed psoriatic skin substitutes were supplemented with a cocktail of four cytokines: TNF-α, IL-1α, IL-6 and IL-17A, to monitor their impact on gene expression by DNA microarray.
Results: Gene profiling analyses identified several deregulated genes reported as being also deregulated in psoriasis skin in vivo (S100A12, IL-8, DEFB4A and KYNU). The expression of those genes was dramatically increased compared with basal levels of controls (p < 0.005 to < 0.05).
Conclusion: Psoriatic substitutes supplemented with a cocktail of TNF-α, IL-1α, IL-6 and IL-17A showed similar transcriptome alterations to those found in psoriasis.
Keywords: cytokines gene ontology analysis; immunology biotechnology; psoriasis transcriptome; skin gene expression profiling; tissue engineering immune response.