Psoriasis resource
The genetics of psoriasis
Psoriasis is a common immune-mediated skin disease with a significant impact on psychosocial wellbeing, lifelong morbidity and mortality.1,2
Inherited susceptibility
Genetics contributes substantially to psoriasis risk.
Heritability estimates describe how much variation in susceptibility across a population is attributable to genetic differences. They do not predict an individual person's chance of developing psoriasis.
Risk, not destinyGenetic susceptibility works alongside environmental and other biological influences. No single common variant determines whether someone will develop psoriasis.
Genetic association
What genome-wide studies reveal
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been conducted for psoriasis across multiple ancestral populations.4–7 These studies compare genetic variation between large groups of people to identify variants that occur more often in people with psoriasis.
There are currently 149 known psoriasis genetic association signals across 109 loci. A locus is a region of the genome: an association at a locus is an important starting point, but it does not by itself identify the causal gene or explain the biological mechanism.
Evidence in contextAssociation studies identify regions of the genome linked to psoriasis susceptibility. Further fine-mapping and functional work is needed to establish the causal variants, genes and mechanisms.
Evidence base
Key references
Content reviewed July 2026
- Griffiths, C. E. M., Armstrong, A. W., Gudjonsson, J. E. & Barker, J. N. W. N. Psoriasis. Lancet 397, 1301–1315 (2021). View article
- World Health Organization. Global Report on Psoriasis (World Health Organization, 2016). View report
- Grjibovski, A. M., Olsen, A. O., Magnus, P. & Harris, J. R. Psoriasis in Norwegian twins: contribution of genetic and environmental effects. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol 21, 1337–1343 (2007). doi:10.1111/j.1468-3083.2007.02268.x
- Tsoi, L. C. et al. Large scale meta-analysis characterizes genetic architecture for common psoriasis associated variants. Nat Commun 8, 15382 (2017). View article
- Dand, N. et al. Exome-wide association study reveals novel psoriasis susceptibility locus at TNFSF15 and rare protective alleles in genes contributing to type I IFN signalling. Hum Mol Genet 26, 4301–4313 (2017). View article
- Patrick, M. T. et al. Genetic signature to provide robust risk assessment of psoriatic arthritis development in psoriasis patients. Nat Commun 9, 4178 (2018). View article
- Stuart, P. E., Tsoi, L. C., Hambro, C. A. & Elder, J. T. Genetics of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. In Oxford Textbook of Psoriatic Arthritis (eds FitzGerald, O. & Gladman, D.), Ch. 5 (Oxford University Press, 2018).