Association of the novel susceptible locus rs9266150 with clinical features of psoriasis vulgaris in the Chinese Han population.

Psoriasis is a chronic multifactorial disease and is considered to be strongly associated with the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region. We have discovered an independent, novel and susceptible psoriasis risk HLA loci, rs9266150; P = 4.52 × 10-9 for the first time. In this study, we aimed to verify the relationship between the susceptible locus and the subphenotypes of psoriasis vulgaris (PV), including geographic location, gender, age of onset, family history and present skin lesion types (chronic plaque and guttate). To investigate the distribution and association of the rs9266150 gene with clinical phenotypes of PV in Chinese Han population, we conducted an analysis in case-control and case-only subjects in the 9906 controls and 8744 cases by MHC targeted sequencing stratified analysis in this study. Significant associations were found with a northern geographic location in the case-only (P = 1.97 × 10-4 ) and the subphenotype-control analyses (P = 5.57 × 10-5 ), males in the case-only (P = 4.77 × 10-3 ) and the subphenotype-control analyses (P = 7.31 × 10-4 ), and guttate psoriasis in the case-only (P = 4.08 × 10-3 ) and the subphenotype-control analyses (P = 1.27 × 10-3 ). There were no significant differences observed between the age of onset (OR = 1.062, 95% CI: 0.9725-1.16, P = 1.8 × 10-1 ) and the family history of psoriasis (OR = 0.981, 95% CI: 0.9048-1.064, P = 6.43 × 10-1 ). The recessive model provided the best fit for rs9266150 (P = 4.38 × 10-7 ). Our results implied that rs9266150 might not only play an important role in the development of psoriasis, but also be positively associated with the geographic location, gender and present skin lesion in the Chinese population.