Polo-like kinase 1 plays an oncogenic role in pan-cancer based on bioinformatics and biological assays

Polo-like kinases (PLKs) are crucial regulatory factors of the cell cycle process and their dysregulations often cause various diseases including tumorigenesis. Although the PLKs, including PLK1, have been extensively studied and reported, few pan-cancer analyses are attainable. The potential oncogenic roles of PLK1 were thus explored among different cancers according to various online websites and datasets. PLK1 is always overexpressed in many cancers, and there is a significant relationship between its expression and the prognosis of cancer patients. In addition, the enrichment analysis suggested that PLK1 might related to “cell cycle”, “DNA replication”, “mismatch repair”, and “immune response” in pan-cancer, especially in glioma. Therefore, the analyses about genetic alterations and immune in pan-cancer were conducted. Furthermore, flow cytometry, CCK8 and EdU assays can further verify the above results of enrichment analysis. Moreover, DNA methylation and ceRNA network were analyzed to explore the potential mechanisms of aberrant expression of PLK1. In conclusion, our research about the oncogenic roles of PLK1 in pan-cancer further supplemented the oncogenic mechanisms of PLK1 and developed new potential therapeutic directions.