title: The angiotensin-converting enzyme insertion/deletion and the endothelin -134 3A/4A gene polymorphisms in patients with chronic plaque psoriasis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Psoriasis is a common chronic inflammatory skin disease. Vasoactive peptides such as endothelin-1 (ET-1) and bradykinin have previously been implicated in the pathogenesis of chronic plaque psoriasis. The angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene carries a 287-base pair insertion/deletion (I/D) gene polymorphism, which is associated with plasma concentrations of bradykinin-degrading ACE. A functional polymorphism (EDN1 -134 3A/4A) in the gene encoding ET-1 has been shown to affect ET-1 expression. The purpose of the present study was thus to investigate a hypothesized association between these gene polymorphisms and the presence of chronic plaque psoriasis.
  
  
  METHODS
  The present case-control study comprised 207 patients with chronic plaque psoriasis (136 with early onset and 71 with late onset disease) and 182 control subjects. Genotypes of EDN1 and ACE were determined by a 5' exonuclease assay (Taqman).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The prevalence of the homozygous ACE II genotype was significantly higher in patients with early-onset psoriasis than among control subjects (30.9% vs 19.2%, P = 0.016), yielding an odds ratio of 1.88 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.12-3.15] for early-onset disease. For late-onset psoriasis, presence of the ACE II genotype was associated with a non-significant odds ratio 1.54 (95% CI: 0.81-2.92). As for the EDN1 -134 3A/4A gene polymorphism, no significant differences in genotype distributions were found between patients with either early- or late-onset psoriasis and control subjects (EDN1 -134 4A/4A: 9.6% in early-onset and 5.6% late-onset psoriasis vs 7.7% in controls; P > 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our data suggest that homozygosity for the ACE I allele may affect susceptibility to early-onset psoriasis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Medical University of Graz, Austria. wolfgang.weger@klinikum-graz.at
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Weger
authors.forename: Angelika
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hofer
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wolf
authors.forename: Yosuf
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: El-Shabrawi
authors.forename: Wilfried
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Renner
authors.forename: Helmut
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kerl
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Salmhofer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D017668:Age of Onset; D000368:Aged; D001317:Austria / Q000453:epidemiology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D019332:Endothelin-1 / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D054643:INDEL Mutation; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D007703:Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A / Q000235:genetics*; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D011565:Psoriasis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D019332:Endothelin-1; D007703:Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A