Complement phenotypes in patients with psoriasis

Phenotype frequencies for the complement proteins C4A, C4B, Bf (factor B) and C3 were performed for 49 Caucasian patients with psoriasis. The C4*A6 allele was present in 26.6% of the patients as compared to 5.4% of healthy regional Caucasian controls, p less than 0.001, relative risk = 6.28. The C4*A6 allele is known to be in linkage disequilibrium with the HLA B17 allele and to produce a non-functional gene product when it occurs with the B17 allele. HLA B17 is known to be associated with psoriasis in many Caucasian populations. Additional findings in the present study were a significant reduction in the C4B*2 allele frequency, a non-significant increase in the Bf*F allele frequency and no difference for Bf or C3 phenotype frequencies in the patients with psoriasis as compared to the controls.