A group at the Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University discovered that TRAF6, an intracellular signal transduction substance on the surface of the skin, is essential for the onset and persistence of psoriasis, and showed that it could be a target for new treatments. rice field.
Psoriasis is a chronic skin disease in which the skin around the body becomes red and swells flat, and silver-white dry keratin is thickly piled up on the surface and peels off.Although the treatment of repeating the antibody that suppresses the function of immunity and injecting it permanently is effective, the annual treatment cost per patient is 1 to 200 million yen, and while using it, 600 ， Since 2% of patients may not be effective, a new inexpensive and safe treatment method is required.
This time, the research group focused on a cell transmission signal called TRAF6 as a causative agent of psoriasis in the epidermis, and attempted to experimentally induce the onset of psoriasis in animals lacking TRAF6 in the epidermis.As a result, it was found that TRAF6-deficient mice did not develop the abnormal immune activation characteristic of psoriasis and did not develop psoriasis at all.In other words, it was found that TRAF6 in the skin epidermis, not the immune abnormality inside the body, is essential for the onset of psoriasis and is also involved in the persistence of psoriasis due to the vicious cycle of abnormal immune activation.
From this result, it is expected that TRAP6 will improve the symptoms of psoriasis as a new therapeutic target to replace antibody drugs in the skin epidermis.Currently, the research group is working on the development of a new therapeutic agent targeting TRAF6 in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies.
Paper information:[JCI Insight] Epithelial TRAF6 drives IL-17–mediated psoriatic inflammation
