In patients with psoriasis, the types of microbes in the gut are different from those in healthy people

In this paper, the authors from Denmark studied the gut flora using samples of faeces from 53 patients with psoriasis who were not on systemic treatment. The authors used a newer and more sensitive technique, 'shotgun metagenomic sequencing analysis'. This technique involves breaking up the microbial DNA into small fragments and using a computer program to reassemble them by recognizing the base pair patterns at the ends of the fragments. The faecal samples from the patients with psoriasis had a different pattern and a less diverse range of bacterial species than those from their partners or the healthy controls.