Abstract: WANG Ai-min, LU Jie-jie, XU Yu-jun, QIAO Feng, LU Yu-zhu, YANG Xian-xu, ZHANG Ming, WU Wei-wei, LIU Qiao, WU Xiao-qiang, WANG Ling, CHEN Da-qiang, ZHANG Hua. Department of Dermatology and Venereology, Hainan Provincial Center for Skin Disease and STD Control, Haikou 570206, China 【Abstract】 Objective To investigate the expressions of Toll-like receptor 4 （TLR4）, nuclear factor-kappa B （NF-κB） p65 and chemokine CCL20 in lesional and nonlesional skin of patients with progressive plaque-type psoriasis, as well as their clinical implications. Methods Paraffin-embedded tissue samples were prepared with lesional （n = 40） and nonlesional （n = 20） skin from progressive plaque-type psoriatic patients as well as from the normal skin of 10 human controls. Then, the expressions of TLR4, NF-κBp65 and CCL20 were detected by immunohistochemical staining technique using the EnVision antibody complex. Differences in the expression of these parameters were assessed by t test or corrected t test, and the correlations between these proteins were evaluated by Pearson′s product-moment correlation coefficient. Results The expression levels of TLR4, NF-κBp65 and CCL20 were significantly higher in lesional skin than in nonlesional skin from patients and in normal skin from normal controls （TLR4: 0.3006 ± 0.1200 vs. 0.1930 ± 0.0687 and 0.1379 ± 0.0663, t = 5.044, 4.113, respectively, both P < 0.05; NF-κBp65: 0.4551 ± 0.1572 vs. 0.2626 ± 0.0606 and 0.1970 ± 0.0679, t = 3.711, 6.106, respectively, both P < 0.05; CCL20: 0.3862 ± 0.1304 vs. 0.2387 ± 0.0467 and 0.1262 ± 0.0612, t = 4.889, 5.265, respectively, both P < 0.05）, and higher in nonlesional skin of patients than in normal skin of the controls （t = 2.118, 2.685, 5.608, respectively, all P < 0.05）. Moreover, the expressions of TLR4, NF-κBp65 and CCL20 were positively correlated with each other in lesional skin of the patients （r = 0.766, 0.851, 0.885, respectively, all P < 0.05）. Conclusion The up-regulated expressions of TLR4, NF-κBp65 and CCL20 might be involved in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. 【Key words】 Psoriasis; Toll-like receptor 4; NF-κBp65; CCL20

Key words: TLR4, NF-kBp65 , CCL20