Increased plasma concentrations of cytoskeletal and Ca2+-binding proteins and their peptides in psoriasis patients

The mechanisms underlying psoriatic pathogenesis are not fully understood and might be elucidated by identifying novel disease-related molecular markers, including autoantigens.

We used 2 proteomic methods to analyze plasma samples from 20 psoriasis patients and 20 matched healthy donors. The first method focused on evaluating changes in glycoprotein concentrations and the plasma proteome, and the second method assessed endogenous proteolytic activity by analyzing the low molecular weight component of plasma.

The integrated proteomic and peptidomic analysis identified a number of proteins and their fragments present at different concentrations in the plasma of psoriasis patients and healthy donors. We used ELISA to independently verify the changes in the concentrations of several of these proteins. One intriguing finding, increased concentrations of cytoskeletal and actin-binding proteins and their peptides in psoriatic plasma, suggested disease-related cell leakage of these proteins and their increased proteolysis. Among the increased proteins and peptides were thymosin beta 4, talin 1, actin gamma, filamin, and profilin. Increased concentrations of Ca(2+)-binding proteins calgranulins A and B in psoriatic plasma were also observed, confirming previous reports, and appeared to be relevant to the increase of cytoskeletal components. Another notable change in psoriatic plasma was a striking decrease in fibrinogen fragments.

The identified increased concentrations of cytoskeletal proteins, their peptides, and calgranulins in psoriatic plasma, as well as the underlying altered protease activity, are proposed to be related to psoriasis pathogenesis.