Expression Profile of Inflammation and Fibrosis Mediators in Tissue Specimens from Cutaneous Sarcoid Lesions (CSL).

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate the molecular and cellular profile of tissue specimens from subjects with CSL. Methods: Twenty subjects were enrolled, 15 with active CSL and 5 healthy volunteers (HV) of similar age and ethnicity. All CS subjects had 2 adjacent 3mm punch skin biopsies collected from lesional skin and 2 separate biopsies collected from an area of nonlesional (NL) skin. Efforts were made to biopsy NL skin contralateral to the CSL biopsy site. Of the subjects with CS, 2 subjects had biopsies collected from a Lupus Pernio lesion. HVs had biopsies collected from a site with minimal cosmetic impact. Gene expression and histological analyses were performed on all skin biopsies. Results: Microarray analyses (Affymetrix U133+2 array) comparing non−lesional skin to lesional skin showed several thousand genes differentially expressed (>2−fold change False Discovery Rate p<.01). Targeted selection of genes associated with a Th1 phenotype showed a strong molecular Th1 profile of sarcoidosis. Confirmatory RT−PCR of 10 genes found to be significantly and differentially expressed between NL and CSL skin biopsies (Tukey's multiple comparison test) are shown in the table. Expression of 9 of 10 genes was significantly elevated while a decrease was noted for IL−13Rα2, a Th2 related gene.