Vitiligo non-responding lesions to narrow band UVB have intriguing cellular and molecular abnormalities that may prevent epidermal repigmentation

We have discovered that human vitiligo patients treated with narrow-band UVB (NBUVB) demonstrated localized resistance to repigmentation in skin sites characterized by distinct cellular and molecular pathways. We used the remaining slides from our immunostaining studies. 1.0 mm2 epidermal scrapes were collected from formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) transverse sections of biopsies from four paired responding and non-responding vitiligo lesions (8 samples total), following published work (Trejo et al., 2019; Yeakley). The material collected was subjected to whole transcriptome TempO-Seq assay. We used a novel method that combines epidermal scraping and TempO-Seq transcriptome analysis and found that the abnormal environment in non-responding was driven by dysregulated cAMP and WNT/ß-catenin signaling pathways. Characterization of abnormal environment that prevents vitiligo repigmentation may open roads for discovery of new drugs that reverse depigmentation. Overall design: Gene expression profiles of interfollicular epidermal samples isolated from biopsies of responding (repigmented) vitiligo lesions were compared to gene expression profiles of interfollicular epidermal samples isolated from paired biopsies of non-responding (depigmented) vitiligo lesions. Paired biopsies were collected from the same patients.