Psoriasis is a disfiguring dermatological disorder characterised by chronic skin plaque formation and keratinocyte hyperproliferation. In addition patients often have an associated debilitating arthritis.
The precise pathogenesis of psoriasis still remains obscure but in the January issue of
The three groups performed a genome-wide analysis using a variety of polymorphic autosomal markers, screening 284 sib relative pairs identified in 158 independent families containing at least one affected relative pair. They detected evidence for linkage at 6p21 (PSORS1), finding a non-parametric linkage score (NPL) of 4.7 and at 1p (NPL=3.6) in all families studied (
A further three regions also provided evidence for linkage, including a region at chromosome 7, for which an association with a number of autoimmune disorders has been reported.
