Inflammasome Signaling and Impaired Vascular Health in Psoriasis

Objective— Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin disease which heightens the risk of cardiovascular disease. This study directly investigated vascular endothelial health and systemically altered pathways in psoriasis and matched controls. Approach and Results— Twenty patients (mean age, 40 years; 50% male) with active psoriasis and 10 age-, sex-matched controls were recruited. To investigate systemically alerted pathways, a deep sequencing omics approach was applied, including unbiased blood transcriptomic and targeted proteomic analysis. Vascular endothelial health was assessed by transcriptomic profiling of endothelial cells obtained from the brachial veins of recruited participants. Blood transcriptomic profiling identified inflammasome signaling as the highest differentially expressed canonical pathway (Z score 1.6; P=1×10-7) including upregulation of CASP5 and interleukin (IL)-1β. Proteomic panels revealed IL-6 as a top differentially expressed cytokine in psoriasis with pathway analysis highlighting IL-...