Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

Psoriasis is associated with increased β-defensin genomic copy number

Abstract

Psoriasis is a common inflammatory skin disease with a strong genetic component. We analyzed the genomic copy number polymorphism of the β-defensin region on human chromosome 8 in 179 Dutch individuals with psoriasis and 272 controls and in 319 German individuals with psoriasis and 305 controls. Comparisons in both cohorts showed a significant association between higher genomic copy number for β-defensin genes and risk of psoriasis.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Frequency distributions of β-defensin genomic copy number.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Ganz, T. Nat. Rev. Immunol. 3, 710–720 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Harder, J., Bartels, J., Christophers, E. & Schroder, J.M. Nature 387, 861 (1997).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Hollox, E.J., Armour, J.A.L. & Barber, J.C.K. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 73, 591–600 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Fellermann, K. et al. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 79, 439–448 (2006).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Bowcock, A.M. & Krueger, J.G. Nat. Rev. Immunol. 5, 699–711 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Niyonsaba, F., Ogawa, H. & Nagaoka, I. Immunology 111, 273–281 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Aldred, P.M.R., Hollox, E.J. & Armour, J.A.L. Hum. Mol. Genet. 14, 2045–2052 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Hollox, E.J. et al. J. Negat. Results BioMed. 4, 9 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Armour, J.A.L. et al. Nucleic Acids Res. 35, e19 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Fredman, D. et al. Nat. Genet. 36, 861–866 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Clayton, D.G. et al. Nat. Genet. 37, 1243–1246 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Joly, S., Organ, C.C., Johnson, G.K., McCray, P.B. Jr. & Guthmiller, J.M. Mol. Immunol. 42, 1073–1084 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Niyonsaba, F., Ushio, H., Nagaoka, I., Okumura, K. & Ogawa, H. J. Immunol. 175, 1776–1784 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Gonzalez, E. et al. Science 307, 1434–1440 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Yang, Y. et al. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 80, 1037–1054 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank J. Tyson for help and advice, and J. Hewitt and J. Brookfield for comments on the manuscript. This work was funded by a Wellcome Trust Bioarchaeology Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded to E.J.H. (grant 071024) and a grant from the Genomics Program of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research to J.S. (050-10-102).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

E.J.H., A.R., J.S. and J.A.L.A. conceived and coordinated the study. P.C.M.v.d.K., H.T., M.d.H., P.L.J.M.Z., D.R.-O., A.R. and J.S. collected and characterized the clinical samples. Copy number typing was carried out by E.J.H. (MAPH/REDVR), R.P., J.A.L.A., J.L. and U.H. (PRT). E.J.H., J.S., J.A.L.A. and G.d.J. performed the statistical and typing quality analysis, with contributions from P.L.J.M.Z., U.H. and M.d.H. All authors contributed to the writing of the paper, with major input from E.J.H., J.S., A.R. and J.A.L.A.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John A L Armour.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Figure 1, Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Table 1 (PDF 640 kb)

Supplementary Table 2 (XLS 561 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hollox, E., Huffmeier, U., Zeeuwen, P. et al. Psoriasis is associated with increased β-defensin genomic copy number. Nat Genet 40, 23–25 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2007.48

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2007.48

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing