An analysis of select pathogenic messages in lesional and non-lesional psoriatic skin using non-invasive tape harvesting.
We report the use of non-invasive tape stripping to sample psoriatic lesional and non-lesional skin in 96 patients. The procedure was well tolerated with any discomfort described as mild; we did not observe any cases of Koebner phenomena at any non-lesional tape-stripped sites. Tape-harvested epidermis was extracted for RNA, which was profiled by semiquantitative reverse transcriptase-PCR. This analysis revealed that mRNAs for tumor necrosis factor alpha, IFNgamma, Krt-16, CD2, IL-23A, IL-12B, and vascular endothelial growth factor are overexpressed in the "average" psoriatic lesion in a majority of patients. In addition, 10 of these patients were biopsied at lesional and non-lesional sites and the expression data compared to tape-stripping data. This comparison shows that five of seven mRNA are more highly expressed in cells captured by tape stripping than biopsy, suggesting that the upper aspect of a lesion contains cells very active in the disease. The tape-harvesting data reveal that approximately 46% of lesions have at least one pathogenic mRNA within non-lesional skin limits. Data demonstrate that tape stripping reveals mRNA markers not detected in biopsy samples and thus the method may be a useful supplement to biopsy.
Benson
Nicholas R
NR
DermTech International, La Jolla, California 92037, USA. nbenson@dermtechintl.com
Papenfuss
Jason
J
Wong
Rita
R
Motaal
Amro
A
Tran
Vynga
V
Panko
Jacqueline
J
Krueger
Gerald G
GG
D001706:Biopsy; D006801:Humans; D053536:Keratin-16; D007633:Keratins / Q000235:genetics; D011565:Psoriasis / Q000473:pathology*; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000032:analysis*; D012867:Skin / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000235:genetics
C507431:KRT16 protein, human; D053536:Keratin-16; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha; D007633:Keratins