Histone H3 Phosphorylation in Human Skin Histoculture as a Tool to Evaluate Patient’s Response to Antiproliferative Drugs

Evaluation of patient’s response to chemotherapeutic drugs is often difficult and time consuming. Skin punch biopsies are easily accessible material that can be used for the evaluation of surrogate biomarkers of a patient’s response to a drug. In this study, we hypothesized that assessment of phosphorylated histone H3 in human skin punch biopsies could be used as a pharmacodynamics biomarker of patient’s response to the kinesin spindle protein inhibitor SCH2047069. To test this hypothesis, we used a human skin histoculture technique that allows culturing intact human skin in the presence of the drug. Human melanoma and skin histocultures were treated with SCH2047069, and the effect of the drug was assessed by increasing histone H3 phosphorylation using immunohistochemistry. Our results demonstrate that SCH2047069 has a significant effect on cell proliferation in human melanoma and skin histoculture and justify using human skin punch biopsies for evaluation of the pharmacodynamic changes induced by SCH2047069. ACRONYMS: Histone subunit H3 (H3), Kinesin spindle protein (KSP), 5-ethynyl-2′-deoxyuridine (EDU), Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), Formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE).