Adenosine Deaminase: A Potential Biomarker For Evaluating The Severity Of Psoriasis

Abstract

Psoriasis is an immune mediated inflammatory skin disease characterized by epidermal hyper proliferation, impaired differentiation of keratinocytes, excessive angiogenesis and immunological dysfunction. Adenosine deaminase, which catalyses the irreversible hydrolytic deamination of adenosine and deoxyadenosine to inosine and deoxyinosine respectively, plays an important role in the degradation of adenine nucleotide and purine nucleotide salvage pathway metabolism. In psoriasis there is increased purine catabolism, resulting from the marked acceleration of epidermal turn-over. The aim of our study was to evaluate the role of serum adenosine deaminase as a biomarker in severity of psoriasis. The study was performed in 60 clinically diagnosed cases of psoriasis and 60 age and sex matched healthy controls. The patients were scored with psoriasis area and severity index. Our results show increased levels of serum adenosine deaminase in psoriasis patients. This increased levels of serum adenosine deaminase also positively correlated with severity of disease.