Changes in neutrophil gene expression in psoriatic arthritis patients in response to sekukinumab

We report changes in gene expression in human peripheral blood neutrophils from patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) before and 12-weeks after treatment with Secukinumab (SKB, 150mg). All patients achieved a good PSARC (Psoriatic Arthritis Response Criteria) and PASI 90 (Psoriasis Area and Severity Index) response to treatment. We also report gene expression in healthy control neutrophils compared to patients wth psoriatic arthritis. Human neutrophils were isolated from peripheral blood samples (5 PsA pre- and post-SKB, 5 healthy controls) using Ficoll-Paque (neutrophil purity >95%). RNA was isolated uisng Trizol. RNA was sequenced using DNBseq PE100 protocols. Sequencing data was mapped to the human genome (hg38) using Tophat2 (v2.1.1). Count data were generated using featureCounts (Rsubread v2.0). Statistical analysis was carried out using edgeR (v3.28.1) with sva (v3.34) batch correction, TMM normalisation and a false-discovery rate cut-off of 0.05.