Background: Many autoimmune diseases share common susceptibility loci suggesting similar underlying cellular mechanisms involved in disease expression.
Objectives: The purpose of this investigation was to study 21 genetic variants in 14 genes that are confirmed autoimmune loci in a cohort of patients with early-onset psoriasis.
Methods: Patients with early-onset psoriasis (n = 750) and controls (n = 3531) were genotyped using the Sequenom(®) MassArray™ iPLEX Gold platform.
Results: We found strong evidence of association with two variants in the IL2/IL21 (rs6822844, genotypic P = 3·3 × 10(-4) ; rs2069778, genotypic P = 7·86 × 10(-4)) region.
Conclusions: The findings, although requiring replication, suggest that IL2/IL21 may play a key role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis as well as in other diverse autoimmune diseases.
© 2011 The Authors. BJD © 2011 British Association of Dermatologists.