Membrane and soluble Toll-like receptor 2 in patients with psoriasis treated by Goeckerman therapy

Background Toll‐like receptor (TLR) 2 belongs to the large TLR receptor family comprised of at least 10 members with different roles in innate immunity. Psoriasis is recognized as a T‐cell driven immune‐mediated systemic inflammatory disease with a skin manifestation. An effective therapeutic approach to treat psoriasis is Goeckerman therapy (GT). The aim of this study was to assess both the kinetics of the expression of TLR2 on blood cells and the concentration of soluble (s)TLR2 in serum of patients with psoriasis and to examine the effect of GT on both TLR2 expression and sTLR2 level. Methods Both membrane and sTLR2 were determined in 20 patients and 20 healthy controls. sTLR2 was evaluated by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay. Flow cytometry method was used to determine the expression of membrane TLR2 of monocytes and granulocytes. Results The serum level of sTLR2 was significantly lower (P