Pro-oxidant status and Nrf2 levels in psoriasis vulgaris skin tissues and dimethyl fumarate-treated HaCaT cells.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) contribute to pathogenesis of many inflammatory skin diseases, including psoriasis. The aim of this study is to compare antioxidant protein expression in psoriasis vulgaris (PV) skin tissues with that in normal skin tissues in vivo and to evaluate the effects of dimethyl fumarate (DMF), used for the treatment of psoriasis, on ROS generation and apoptosis in a human keratinocyte cell line HaCaT. Compared with normal skin tissues, PV skin tissues showed increased protein oxidation as well as down-regulation of Nrf2 and its regulatory proteins such as HO-1 and AKR1C3. Using HaCaT cells to model DMF-induced pro-oxidant effects in the skin cells, we found that DMF treatment induced increased ROS levels and apoptotic cell death, as signified by increased proportion of cells with Annexin V-PE(+) staining and a sub-G