Abstract
BACKGROUND/AIMS: Psoriasis is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory skin disease characterized by excessive proliferation of keratinocytes. It has a strong genetic predisposition; gene-gene interactions are important genetic models for common diseases. In this study, we explore pair-wise interactions among SNPs contributing to psoriasis susceptibility. METHODS: We first performed gene interactions with exome-sequencing, next, we analyzed gene interactions combining the exome sequencing data with the targeted sequencing data. After we sequenced HLA region, we analyzed gene interactions including HLA regions and non-HLA regions. RESULTS: We found interactions between HLA regions were significant. We observed significant interactions between HLA-C*06:02 and rs118179173 (snp31443520; p = 8.21 × 10(-20) , OR = 0.22) and between HLA-C*06:02 and HLA-B:AA67 (p = 1.22 × 10(-12) , OR = 0.45). CONCLUSION: This study provides evidence that HLA is the most important susceptibility region on the risk of psoriasis and interactions that occur in this region are still significant.