Expression Of Nerve Growth Factor And Keratinocyte Growth Factor In Psoriasis And Their Clinical Significance

Graduate: Wenfei Yan Instructor: Professor Guojun SunProfessor Min Zheng Dept. of Dermatology Zhejiang University School of MedicinePsoriasis is a chronic papulosquamous disease, with the pathological character of epidermal hyperproliferation and increased infiltration of inflammatory cells. Its profound pathological process is still unknown. Recently, lots of experiments have suggusted that Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) derivated from keratinocyte and Keratinocyte Growth Factor(KGF) derivated from flbroblast, efficient mitogenic factors to abundence of cells, exist in epidermal tissue and stimulate keratinocyte (KC) proliferation, migration, differentiation and accelerate the infiltration of inflammatory cells. However, there are no study reported so far concering the relation between the expression of NGF and KGF in psoriasis, the changs of the in-situ expression in lesional and non-lesional and the normal controls. Inthe meanwhile, paralleled study on the expression of NGF, KGF, EGFR and PCNA is absent. The purpose of this study was to detect the expression of NGF, NGFR, KGF, KGFR, EGFR and PCNA in psoriatic epidermal tissue, and compare simultaneously their expression in different age groups, sex groups, duration groups and different area, and investigate the relationship of above factors . METHODS33 patients with vulgaris psoriasis were studied. There were 22 men and 11 woman, aged from 6-62, with an average of 48 years. The duration of illness varied from 2 weeks to 41 years.Skin biopsies were obtained from 33 patients with psoriasis vulgaris. Biopsies were taken from representative lesional tissue as well as from 8 adjacent uninvloved skin by operation. Biopsies were divided into 2 pieces. One was snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80癈 until use, the other was fixed with 10% formalin and embedded in paraffin. Routine histopathology and immunohistochemistry was performed resprectively on aceton-fixed cryostat sections and formalin-fixed tissues with subsequent dehydration through graded alcohols, clearence with toluene, and embedding in paraffin.Immunohistochemical staining was performed on aceton-fixed cryostat sections by immunohistomical SP method. Paraffin-embedded sections were also performed after they were cleared with toluene and hydrated through graded alcohols. The following parameters weredetermined by immunohistological staining:Polyclonal antibodies:Keratinocyte Growth Factor (KGF), Keratinocyte Growth FactorReceptor(KGFR), Nerve Growth Factor (NGF)(Above antibodyies were bought from Santa Cruz BiotechnologyIncorporation)Monoclonal antibodies:Nerve Growth Factor Receptor(NGFR), Epidermal Growth FactorReceptor( EGFR), Markers of nuclear proliferation(PCNA)(Above antibodies were bought from Man Xin BiotechnologyIncorporation)RESULTS1. The analysis of the relation between all parameters and clinical factors in psoriasis showed no significant relation between NGFR, KGFR, PCNA and sex, age, duration or state of illness. However, the expression of KGF (P<0.05), NGF(P<0.05) and EGFR(P<0.05) were significantly increased in advance stage compared with stable stage.2. In normal skin, plasma membrane staining of KGF and KGFR staining is localized to the basal layers of keratinocytes, while staining of NGFR and EGFR to the stratum corneum and granular layer. The staining of NGF was seen occasionaly and weakly, while PCNA distributed scatterly in basal cells. In psoriasis, antibodies of KGF and KGFR also stained cells in the suprabasal layers and basal layers. Nuclear staining of7NGF existed in parakeratic stratum corneum, granular layers and the upper part of spinous layers. Furthermore, a weak staining was also found on the basal membrane of basal layers. The NGFR and EGFR staining were predominantly detected in the epidermal cells above spinous layers, but the staining in the basal layers and the spinous underlayers were absen...