MicroRNA-21 and MicroRNA-125b expression in skin tissue and serum as predictive biomarkers for psoriasis

Psoriasis is a chronic, inflammatory, and hyperproliferative skin disease. We have investigated the role of miR-21 and miR-125b in the development of psoriasis and atopic eczema and their relation with the severity of the diseases.

Participants included 40 psoriasis patients, 40 healthy controls, and 40 atopic eczema patients as a positive control group. In addition, analysis of mRNA expression of miR-125b and miR-21 was carried out utilizing quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in serum samples and skin tissue.

Our results have demonstrated that miR-21 was significantly overexpressed in the psoriatic and atopic eczema skin tissue and serum samples compared to controls, whereas miR-125b was significantly down-expressed in psoriatic and atopic eczema skin tissues and serum samples. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between the psoriasis area and severity index (PASI) score and miR-21 among the studied groups in both serum and tissue samples. In contrast, there was a statistically significant negative association between the miR-125b and PASI score. On the other hand, there was no significant relation between the extent of body surface area (BSA), intensity, and subjective symptoms using visual analog scale (VAS) of atopic eczema disease and miRNA-21 and miRNA-125b in both tissue and serum.

In conclusion, miR-21 gene expression was significantly increased in psoriatic and atopic eczema skin samples and serum samples, whereas miR-125b was statistically lowered in psoriatic and atopic eczema patient samples. The miR-21 and miR-125b expression level has a possible predictive value as a marker for psoriasis severity but not for atopic eczema severity.