Expression of CC chemokine ligand 20 and CC chemokine receptor 6 mRNA in patients with psoriasis vulgaris.

In order to explore the possible role of CC chemokine ligand 20 (CCL20) and its receptor CC chemokine receptor 6 (CCR6) in the pathogenesis of psoriasis, the expression levels of mRNA of them in psoriatic lesions were investigated. The skin biopsies were collected from skin lesions in 35 cases of psoriasis vulgaris and 18 normal controls. RT-PCR was used to semi-quantitatively analyze the mRNA expression of CCL20 and CCR6 in the psoriatic lesions and the normal skin tissues. The results showed that the mRNA of CCL20 and CCR6 was present in every specimen. The expression levels of CCL20 mRNA in skin lesions were 1.1397 +/- 0.0521, which were greatly higher than those in normal controls (0.8681 +/- 0.0308) (P<0.001). The expression levels of CCR6 mRNA in skin lesions were 1.1103 +/- 0.0538, significantly higher than in the controls (0.9131 +/- 0.0433, P<0.001). These findings indicate that up-regulated expression of CCL20 and CCR6 mRNA might be related to the pathogenesis of psoriasis.