Pipeline – Polo-like Kinase (PLK)

About PLK

Higher levels of PLK-1 protein have been shown to be present in many types of cancer including non-small-cell lung cancer, head and neck cancer, esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, melanomas, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, colorectal cancer, gliomas, and thyroid cancer. These higher PLK-1 levels have been linked to patients with a poor disease prognosis. In addition, reducing PLK-1 enzyme activity or protein levels has been shown to induce tumour cell death in a variety of biological model systems. The normal cellular role of PLK-1 is as a critical regulator of cell division during mitosis and interfering with this process has been shown to lead to the programmed cell death (apoptosis) of tumour cells.

Sareum have identified a variety of novel small molecule PLK-1 inhibitors which are currently being optimised as drug candidates.