Roles of endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidase-1 in the pathogenesis of psoriasis

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease.The pathogenesis of psoriasis remains unclear,and is considered to be associated with genetics,environment and autoimmunity.In recent years,with the progress in genome-wide association studies,numerous susceptibility loci have been successively identified for psoriasis,including the endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidase-1 (ERAP1) gene.A lot of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) inside the ERAP1 gene have been repeatedly confirmed to be associated powerfully with psoriasis in nearly all ethnic/racial populations,and there might be some interactions between ERAP1 and HLA-C.ERAP1 is also involved in the trimming of HLA class I molecules to an optimal length and in the cleavage of several cytokine cell surface receptors.Moreover,ERAP1 takes part in immune regulation,in particular the activation of CD8+ T cells,and plays a certain role in the induction and maintenance of psoriatic lesions via cooperating with other inflammatory cells and cytokines. Key words: Psoriasis;  ERAP1;  HLA-C antigens