| Summary: | Objective To assess serum levels of zinc in children patients with pityriasis alba (PA) and study mRNA expression profile of oxidative stress pathway by bioinformatics technology to investigate the relationship between oxidative stress and PA. Methods Healthy controls (167 cases) and children patients with PA (196 cases) were choosed from the Department of Child Health Care and Dermatology of Panyu Maternal and Child Care Service Centre of Guangzhou. Zinc was assayed by using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry; zinc levels in the PA and control groups were compared according to different age groups. Total RNA from peripheral blood of patients with PA and healthy children (5 each) were extracted and purified. High-throughput sequencing was used to detect mRNA expression levels and identify differentially expressed superoxide dismutase (SOD) mRNAs between patients with PA and healthy controls. The correlation between differential mRNAs was analyzed. Results The mean zinc level of patients with PA of different ages was 3.99±0.81, 4.37±1.04, 4.48±0.92, 5.07±0.99, 5.34±0.88, respectively, while that of health controls was 4.77±0.83, 5.61±1.01, 5.42±0.43, 5.91±0.66, 5.69±0.54 (all P<0.05). Our analyses confirmed 1 252 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Gene ontology (GO) functional annotation showed that biological functions of the top 20 DEGs were mainly associated with response to oxidative stress, innate immune response. mRNA expressions of HBB, HBA1, and HBA2 in the oxidative stress pathway were upregulated in the PA group. The CuZn-SOD (SOD1) mRNA expression level was higher in the PA group than that in the normal group, but it was not statistically significant. Conclusions Oxidative stress is one of the pathogeneses of PA, and this may be caused by zinc deficiency.
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