Role of β-catenin in vitiligo: a clinical and immunohistochemical study

Objective This study aimed at evaluating the immunohistochemical expression of β-catenin in the involved skin in vitiligo patients and to correlate its evaluated expression with the available clinicopathological parameters in those patients. Background Vitiligo is an autoimmune skin disorder in which the loss of melanocytes is mainly attributed to defective autoimmune mechanisms, cytotoxic mechanisms, an intrinsic defect of melanocytes, oxidant–antioxidant mechanisms, and neural mechanisms. The assessment of maintenance of vitiligo could be related to β-catenin expression. The treatment of vitiligo remains a challenge. Patients and methods Thirty-five patients with different degrees of vitiligo severity versus 20 patients of age-matched and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Biopsies were taken from vitiliginous lesion of patients and from healthy skin of controls. Results The relative expression of β-catenin protein in vitiligo patients showed nonsignificant differences between vitiligo cases and their matched controls regarding all studied parameters (P > 0.05) except for cellular localization, which was mainly cytoplasmic in vitiligo cases (25, 80.6%) versus 50% in the control group (P = 0.001). Conclusion β-Catenin may have an active role in the pathogenesis of vitiligo.