Immunohistochemical Expression of p53 and bcl-2 in Psoriasis

Introduction: Apoptosis plays a major role in maintaining the balance between cellular proliferation and cell death in the skin. Blockage of apoptosis has been implicated as one of the contributing factors in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. P53 has a role in induction of cell cycle arrest, apoptosis as well as regulation of cell proliferation, bcl-2 is anti-apoptotic protein. Previous studies have reported controversial results relating to their expression in psoriatic skin. Aim: To evaluate the immunohistochemical expression of p53 and bcl-2 in the epidermis, basal cells and lymphocytes of psoriatic skin and compare it with the adjacent perilesional skin. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Hind Institute of Medical Sciences, Safedabad, Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, India from June 2016 to December 2017. Fifty cases of psoriasis were included and punch skin biopsies including a small part of perilesional skin was taken. The sections were studied for the presence of immunohistochemical expression of p53 and bcl-2 using scoring systems. The perilesional part of the biopsy was used for comparing the histopathological and immunohistochemical expressions. The student t-test was used for comparison of groups using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0 program and a p-value of