Psoriasis is a common chronic inflammatory skin disease. Keratinocytes (KCs) are important effector cells that can recruit inflammatory cells by releasing inflammatory factors and chemokines to promote the inflammatory cascade in psoriasis. However, the mechanism underlying KC activation in psoriasis remains unclear. Livin is an inhibitor of apoptotic proteins and its expression can directly affect the proliferation and metastasis of tumor cells. Livin expression has been reported to be significantly increased in the lesions of patients with psoriasis; however, its specific role in KC activation has not yet been reported. The aim of this study was to investigate whether livin regulates KC activation and causes the release of inflammatory mediators. The expression levels of livin in patients with psoriasis, an imiquimod (IMQ) mouse model, and M5-treated HaCaT cells were determined via immunofluorescence staining, reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and western blotting. We constructed livin knockdown (Knockdown-HaCaT) and negative control (NC-HaCaT) cells using human immunodeficiency virus-1-based lentiviral vectors to study the function of livin in KCs via RNA-sequencing and proteomics analysis. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analyses were performed. Moreover, the effect of livin expression on the release of inflammatory mediators in KCs was verified using ELISA.