EVALUATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMAN LEUKOCYTE ANTIGEN-C (HLA-C) ALLELES AND CLINICAL PHENOTYPES OF PSORIASIS

Rana Ahmad*, Fouz Hassan, Faisal Redwan and Haissam Yazigi

ABSTRACT

Background: Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease with an immune genetic background and a close correlation to the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) because of containing the psoriasis susceptibility gene PSORS1. Objective: To evaluate the relationship between human leukocyte antigen C alleles and different clinical phenotypes of psoriasis. Materials and methods: This study included 50 patients with psoriasis. Patients were divided into three subgroups based on the clinical phenotype of psoriasis. Their HLA-C alleles were determined by PCR using sequence-specific primers PCR-SSP. Results: The most common clinical phenotype was plaque psoriasis diagnosed in 40 of 50 patients (80%), followed by pustular psoriasis and guttate psoriasis; 12% and 8%, respectively. The alleles were not associated with the clinical phenotype of psoriasis (P > 0.05), except for the HLA-C*17 allele with pustular psoriasis (P = 0.05). The alleles HLA-C*02, HLA-C*08, HLA-C*14 were only found in plaque psoriasis. Conclusion: Due to racial and geographic differences in the distribution of alleles and their relationship with psoriasis types. It is important to conduct more studies in larger populations to identify more risk alleles involved in the pathogenesis of psoriasis.

Keywords: HLA-C, PCR-SSP, psoriasis, plaque psoriasis, pustular, guttate.