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Updated: Jul 1, 2025

Lymphocyte Isolation from Human Skin for Phenotypic Analysis and Ex Vivo Cell Culture
Published on: April 8, 2016
Regulation of the Immune Cell Repertoire in Psoriasis Patients Upon Blockade of IL-17A or TNFα
Julia Tittes1, Jennifer Brell2, Pia Fritz2
1Department of Dermatology, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090, Vienna, Austria. julia.tittes@icloud.com.
Introduction:
Targeting of the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin 17A (IL-17A) or tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) with the monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) ixekizumab or adalimumab, respectively, is a successful therapy for chronic plaque psoriasis. The effects of these treatments on immune cell populations in the skin are largely unknown.
Methods:
In this study, we compared the composition of cutaneous, lesional and non-lesional immune cells and blood immune cells in ixekizumab- or adalimumab-treated patients with psoriasis.
Results:
Our data reveal that both treatments efficiently downregulate T cells, macrophages and different subsets of dendritic cells (DCs) in lesional skin towards levels of healthy skin. In contrast to lesional skin, non-lesional areas in patients harbor only few or no detectable DCs compared to the skin of healthy subjects. Treatment with neither ixekizumab nor adalimumab reversed this DC imbalance in non-lesional skin of psoriatic patients.
Conclusion:
Our study shows that anti-IL-17A and anti-TNFα therapy rebalances the immune cell repertoire of lesional skin in psoriatic patients but fails to restore the disturbed immune cell repertoire in non-lesional skin.
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