PK2 is a psoriasis-specific factor that is highly expressed in mouse and human psoriatic skins, but is not significantly expressed in other autoimmune diseases, such as inflammatory bowel diseases, atherosclerosis, and diabetes; PK2 significantly increases the expression of Caspase-1, and also strongly up-regulates the AIM2 inflammasome signaling pathway in monocytic THP-1 cells, which is engaged by AIM2 to promote the synthesis and secretion of proinflammatory cytokine IL-1β (He et al., 2016). Here, PROK2 is linked to atherosclerosis.