Evaluation of skin-surface interleukin 1 α, interleukin-1 Receptor Antagonist, CXCL-1/2 and β-defensin-1 as non-invasive biomarkers for monitoring psoriasis vulgaris

Abstract

There is a need for non-invasive diagnostic tools that can objectively measure psoriasis activity and that can be used to monitor therapeutic effects of psoriasis treatment. This study aimed to determine whether non-invasive measurements of proteins from psoriasis lesional skin can be used to assess disease severity and to measure treatment efficacy.Using FibroTx TAP technology for protein-measurements directly from the surface of skin, clear differences in levels of IL-1α, IL-1RA and CXCL-1/2 were found between psoriasis lesional skin and non-lesional skin. No clear correlations were found between FibroTx TAP measurements and PASI scoring, with the exception of a mild correlation between CXCL-1/2 and scaling. Similarly, no clear correlations were found between FibroTx TAP measurements and ultrasound measurements of skin, with the exception of a weak correlation between IL-1RA and SLEB thickness. Monitoring IL-1RA and CXCL-1/2 on skin lesions undergoing narrow-band UVB phototherapy clearly reflected normalisation of skin.Skin-surface measurements of IL-1RA and CXCL-1/2 have potential for assessing severity of psoriasis and for monitoring treatment efficacy. Measurements of IL-1RA and CXCL-1/2 displayed a disease profile distinct from PASI or sonography, thus confirming that measuring the ‘molecular root’ of inflammation has value for scoring disease severity in its own right.