Misbehaving Macrophages In Psoriasis

Main Category: Eczema / Psoriasis
Article Date: 06 Aug 2006 - 1:00 PDT

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Psoriasis commonly appears as red, scaly, thickening patches of skin called plaques and is believed to be either an immune-mediated disorder in which T cells become active, migrate to the skin, and trigger an immune reaction causing inflammation and a rapid turnover of skin cells, or simply a fault in the skin cells themselves. Two separate studies appearing in the August issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, in different mouse models of psoriasis, now report that macrophages play a key role in inducing psoriasis-like skin disease.

Karin Scharffetter-Kochanek and colleagues from the University of Ulm studied a mouse model of psoriasis in which inflammation is T cell-dependent, whereas Ingo Haase and colleagues from the University of Cologne studied a T cell-independent mouse model of psoriasis. Strikingly, both groups report an important contribution by macrophages, implying that macrophages can contribute to both epithelial-based and T cell-mediated pathways of inflammation in this chronic skin disorder.

In an accompanying commentary, Rachael Clark and Thomas S. Kupper from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, comment that the results of these two studies suggest that macrophages in the dermis, once activated by T cells or cytokines expressed by dendritic cells, produce large amounts of TNF-alpha, leading to psoriasis lesion formation. These authors go on to conclude that, "The underlying events that lead to macrophage recruitment and activation remain to be fully characterized and may result from either autoreactive T cells or aberrant epidermal signals. Further clarification �will lead to treatments that can strike at the true source of this chronic inflammatory skin disease."

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TITLE: Pathogenic role for skin macrophages in a mouse model of keratinocyte-induced psoriasis-like skin inflammation

AUTHOR CONTACT:
Ingo Haase
University of Cologne, Germany.


View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=27179

RELATED MANUSCRIPT

TITLE: Activated macrophages are essential in a murine model for T cell-mediated chronic psoriasiform skin inflammation

AUTHOR CONTACT:
Karin Scharffetter-Kochanek
University of Ulm, Germany.


View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=27180

ACCOMPANYING COMMENTARY

TITLE: Misbehaving macrophages in the pathogenesis of psoriasis

AUTHOR CONTACT:
Thomas S. Kupper
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.


View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=29441

Source: JCI table of contents: August, 2006

Contact: Brooke Grindlinger
Journal of Clinical Investigation

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