Keratin 17 is Not Always a Marker of Proliferation of Keratinocytes in Skin Diseases

Figures & data

Table 1 The Characteristics of the Participants

Clinical Data	N	Age (Year)			Sex		Duration of Disease (Years)
		17–25	29–49	>50	Man	Female	<2	>2
CLP	20	2	6	12	10	10	18	2
PN	20	1	12	7	14	6	6	14
LSC	20	1	14	5	14	6	8	12

Abbreviations: CLP, cutaneous lichen planus; LSC, lichen simplex chronicus; PN, prurigo nodularis.

Figure 1 (A) Immunohistochemistry (IHC) showing K17 not being expressed in normal healthy skin (NHS); (B) but expressed in hair follicles and sebaceous glands (all magnifications 200×).

Table 2 The Expression of K17 in the Lesions of CLP, LSC and PN

Samples	N	-	+-	+	++	+++	P-value
CLP	20	0	0	4	12	4	<0.01 >0.05 >0.05
LSC	20	14	2	4	0	0
PN	20	18	0	2	0	0
NHS	10	9	1	0	0	0

Abbreviations: CLP, cutaneous lichen planus; LSC, lichen simplex chronicus; PN, prurigo nodularis; NHS, normal healthy skin.

Table 3 Quantitative Analysis the Expression of K17

Groups	N	Average Gray Value (Mean ± Std. Dev.)	P-value
NHS^1	10	185.565±4.994	^aP < 0.001
CLP^2	20	151.153±13.985	^bP < 0.001, ^cP < 0.001
LSC^3	20	178.720±12.001	^dP = 0.4627, ^eP = 0.1174
PN^4	20	181.316±8.920	^fP = 0.3284

Notes: ^aComparison between groups 1 and 2, ^bComparison between groups 2 and 3, ^cComparison between groups 2 and 4, ^dComparison between groups 3 and 4, ^eComparison between groups 1 and 3, ^fComparison between groups 1 and 4.

Abbreviations: CLP, cutaneous lichen planus; LSC, lichen simplex chronicus; PN, prurigo nodularis; NHS, normal healthy skin; Std.Dev., Standard Deviation.

Figure 2 (A) Immunohistochemistry (IHC) demonstrated that K17 was highly expressed in all epidermal layers in cutaneous lichen planus (CLP) lesions (brown staining); (B) but not in lichen simplex chronicus (LSC); (C) and prurigo nodularis (PN). (all magnifications 200×).