Paired Transcriptomic and Proteomic Analysis Implicates IL-1β in the Pathogenesis of Papulopustular Rosacea Explants

Papulopustular rosacea (PPR) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease with limited treatment options. Although multiple pathways have been described to be upregulated in PPR, a mechanistic understanding of the key drivers and interaction between pathways in PPR pathology is lacking. In this study, we utilized PPR skin biopsy explants to integrate both differentially expressed genes and differentially expressed proteins in paired nonlesional and lesional PPR tissue (n = 5 patients). The results of this study identified 92 differentially expressed genes and 20 differentially expressed proteins between paired PPR lesional and nonlesional explants. MAPK and TNF signaling pathways were the most significantly upregulated pathways in PPR lesional tissue and aligned with differently expressed proteins identified in this study. Both MAPK and TNF signaling pathways highlighted IL-1β as a potential central mediator for PPR pathogenesis. In support of this, stimulation of nonlesional explants with IL-1β resulted in transcriptomic and proteomic profiles similar to those of lesional PPR. In this integrative transcriptomic and quantitative protein analysis, we identified several inflammatory genes, proteins, and pathways, which may be contributing to PPR, as well as highlighted a potential role of IL-1β in driving inflammation in PPR.