Long non-coding RNAs in psoriatic and healthy skin

In this study, we used RNA-sequencing to profile the long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) transcriptome in lesional skin from psoriasis patients before (PP) and after treatment (PT) with adalimumab and in normal skin from healthy individuals (NN). For this we sequenced total RNA from 18 psoriasis patients (before and after treatment) and 16 healthy controls. We created our own reference set of long non-coding RNAs by merging three long non-coding RNA reference data sets. The combined reference had 67,157 lncRNA transcripts with no overlaps. We identified differential expression of 971 lncRNAs between PP and NN, 157 between PP and PT, and 377 between PT and NN. Based on differentially expressed (DE) lncRNAs between PP and NN, we identified a molecular lncRNA signature that distinguishes psoriatic skin from healthy skin . We recruited 18 psoriatic patients in our study. We took 5 mm punch biopsies from the edge of a psoriatic plaque before treatment and after one month of treatment with adalimumab. The mean improvement in the PASI over this time period was 53.1%. We obtained sixteen normal skin samples (N=16) from healthy control surgical discard specimens.