Background Vascular alterations are significant events in the pathomechanism of psoriasis. A disorder in the mechanisms regulating skin angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis could participate in the pathogenesis of the disease.

Objectives To quantify differences in the expression of angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis growth factors, receptors, coreceptors as well as their antagonists in the uninvolved skin of patients with psoriasis compared with the skin of nonpsoriatic volunteers.

Methods Skin biopsies were collected from the involved skin of 13 patients with untreated plaque‐type psoriasis, from their nonlesional skin at distance from the lesions and from the skin of 16 healthy volunteers. The mRNA steady‐state level of keratins 10, 14 and 16, glyceraldehyde‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), vimentin, collagen I and IV, proliferating cell nuclear antigen, the various splice variants of vascular endothelial growth factor, VEGF‐A, VEGF‐C and VEGF‐D, their receptors VEGFR1, VEGFR2 and VEGFR3, neuropilin (NRP)‐1 and its soluble forms, NRP‐2, semaphorin 3A and prox‐1, was measured by reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction. Immunohistochemistry was performed for Ki‐67, von Willebrand factor and D2‐40. Blood and lymphatic vessel density, area and distance from epidermis were estimated by morphological analysis coupled to an original computer‐assisted method of quantification.

Results Skin from healthy volunteers and nonlesional skin from patients with psoriasis displayed similar histological, morphometric and proliferative features. However, a significant overexpression of VEGFR3, the VEGF‐A isoform VEGF121, soluble 12 NRP‐1 and GAPDH was observed in the nonlesional psoriatic skin as compared with that of normal volunteers.

Conclusions These data point to significant differences in the blood and lymphatic vascular transcriptome between the clinically normal‐appearing skin of patients with psoriasis and the skin of volunteers without psoriasis.