Psoriasis, the most common autoimmune disease in the U.S., afflicts millions of people, causing their skin to become reddened and covered with scales, but its cause is unknown.
Now researchers believe they’ve taken a huge step toward solving the mystery.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland say they have identified four proteins that most likely play a role in causing the disease.
The findings, published this month in Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, dramatically advance efforts to understand how psoriasis develops, and in turn, how to stop it, the researchers believe.
Nicole L. Ward, associate professor at Case Western Reserve, and her team studied 50,000 proteins in the human body, narrowing their field of to about 1,280 proteins that are differentially regulated in the condition. From there, they narrowed their focus to ones that stood out either because of their high prevalence in human psoriasis or their prominence in other studies relating to human psoriasis tissue.
Ward said she has a personal interest in finding a cure for psoriasis because her father suffers from it.
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