Hunting for disease markers – psoriasis

1. Hunting for disease markers – psoriasis [1] J. Xia and W. Zhang*, MicroRNAs in normal and psoriatic skin, Physiological Genomics, 46(4):113-22, 2014 (invited review). [2] J. Xia, C.E. Joyce, A.M. Bowcock* and W. Zhang*, Noncanonical microRNAs and endogenous siRNAs in normal and psoriatic human skin, Human Molecular Genetics, 22(4):737-48, 2013. [3] C.E. Joyce, X. Zhou, J. Xia, C. Ryan, B. Thrash, A. Menter, W. Zhang* and A.M. Bowcock*, Deep sequencing of small RNAs from human skin reveals major alterations in the psoriasis miRNAome, Human Molecular Genetics, 20(20):4025-40, 2011. • Are there non-protein coding, RNA genes characteristic of complex diseases? • There are more noncoding genes than protein-coding genes in the human genome • They play critical roles during development and in diseases • Are there small noncoding RNAs that can be used as biomarkers for diseases? • Many of them are master regulators of protein-coding genes • They can be identified and profiled by high-throughput deep sequencing technologies and computational methods • They can be analyzed computationally • There are microRNAs and siRNAs that are characteristic of disease phenotypes and can be used as biomarkers of complex diseases like psoriasis, an autoimmune skin disorder with no cure.