Integrative Methylome and Transcriptome Analysis to Dissect Key Biological Pathways for Psoriasis in Chinese Han Population

Psoriasis (Ps) is a chronic recurring hyperproliferative and inflammatory skin disease with a diverse prevalence rate ranging from 0.17%-4% of the people worldwide [1]. The pathogenesis of Ps involves a complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors. Genetic linkage analysis, candidate gene association study, genome-wide meta-analysis and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have found numerous susceptibility genes or loci associated with Ps in different populations [2–7]. However, analyses based on sequence variation like gene mutation, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and copy number variation (CNV) demonstrated that only about 13% of the total proportion of heritability for diseases could be explained [8,9], suggesting that non-DNA sequence changes such as epigenetic, gene-gene interactions, epigenetic and genetic synergies may have important effects on disease developing [10–12].