Background: Increased tumour necrosis factor alpha has been found in psoriatic skin. This cytokine activates endothelial cells and induces the membrane E-selectin molecule (E-selectin or endothelial leucocyte adhesion molecule 1); the same cytokine is able to induce its own receptors. Since the soluble forms of E-selectin and tumour necrosis factor receptor (TNF-R, 60 kD) may be reliably measured in body fluids, these determinations have been performed in the sera of psoriatic patients.
Objective: To evaluate endothelial activation in psoriatic patients, sE-selectin has been determined in patient sera and compared with those of a control group. sTNF-R (60 kD) was also measured in the same samples.
Methods: Two commercially available enzyme immunoassay methods have been used to determine sE-selectin and sTNF-R (60 kD) in the sera of 19 patients with plaque-type psoriasis; 22 healthy subjects were used as controls.
Conclusions: Significantly increased amounts of sE-selectin serum levels were found in psoriatic patients as compared to healthy controls. Moreover, a direct correlation between sE-selectin and PASI scores was observed. On the contrary, sTNF-R (60 kD) serum levels presented no increases. These data suggest that sE-selectin serum levels are a reliable marker of disease activity in psoriatic patients.