Identification of targetable vulnerabilities of PLK1-overexpressing cancers by synthetic dosage lethality

Abstract

Chromosomal instability (CIN) drives tumor heterogeneity, complicating cancer therapy. Although Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) overexpression induces CIN, direct inhibition of PLK1 has shown limited clinical benefits. We therefore performed a genome-wide synthetic dosage lethality (SDL) screen to identify effective alternative targets and validated over 100 candidates using in vivo and in vitro secondary CRISPR screens. We employed direct-capture Perturb-seq to assess the transcriptional consequences and viability of each SDL perturbation at a single-cell resolution. This revealed IGF2BP2 as a critical genetic dependency that, when targeted, downregulated PLK1 and significantly restricted tumor growth. Mechanistic analyses showed that IGF2BP2 loss disrupted cellular energy metabolism and mitochondrial ATP production by downregulating PLK1 levels as well as genes associated with oxidative phosphorylation. Consistent with this, pharmacological inhibition of IGF2BP2 severely impacts the viability of PLK1-overexpressing cancer cells addicted to higher metabolic rates. Our work offers a novel therapeutic strategy against PLK1-driven heterogeneous malignancies.

Keywords: IGF2BP2; IMP2; PLK1; chromosomal instability; in vivo CRISPR screen; perturb-seq; single-cell CRISPR screening; synthetic dosage lethality; tumor heterogeneity.