STG does not associate with psoriasis in the Swedish population

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that is known to have a strong genetic predisposition. Several psoriasis-susceptibility loci have been previously found through genomic scans. Of these, psoriasis-susceptibility region 1 (PSORS1) on chromosome 6p21 remains the most consistently identified region across populations with the highest association with disease. STG is a gene that was previously isolated from rhesus monkey taste buds, and its ortholog in humans was found to be part of the cluster of genes in PSORS1, which is telomeric to HLA-C. Upon characterization of STG, we identified several sequence variants and investigated their association with psoriasis in cases and controls from the Swedish population. None of these STG single-nucleotide polymorphisms were found to be significantly associated with psoriasis. However, HLA-Cw*0602 status was strongly associated with disease. STG expression was investigated in human tissues and found not to be restricted to taste buds, with signals also being detected in skin and tonsils.