Background:

Pracinostat, also known as SB939, is a potent and orally available inhibitor of histone deacetylase (HDAC) with a relatively stronger selectivity (more than 1000-fold) for class I, class II and class IV HDACs rather than class III HDACs. Pracinostat potently suppresses proliferation in a wide range of cancer cell lines, including colon cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate carcinomas, acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and B cell lymphoma. Recent study results have shown that SB939 induces the accumulation of acetylated histone H3 (AcH3) and acetylated α-tubulin and increases the expression of the cyclin dependent kinase inhibitor p21 in cancer cells.

Reference

[1].Razak AR, Hotte SJ, Siu LL, Chen EX, Hirte HW, Powers J, Walsh W, Stayner LA, Laughlin A, Novotny-Diermayr V, Zhu J, Eisenhauer EA. Phase I clinical, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic study of SB939, an oral histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, in patients with advanced solid tumours. Br J Cancer. 2011;104(5):756-762.