To test the potential generality of the efficacy of the shHK2/DPI/PER combination in cancers with the HK1−HK2+ molecular characteristic, regardless of their tissues of origin, we used the isogenic lung cancer cell line pair, HK1KOHK2+ H460 cells created by CRISPR Cas9 knockout, and their parental HK1+HK2+ H460 cells to establish HK1KOHK2+/shHK2DOX H460 cells and HK1+HK2+/shHK2DOX H460 cells (Additional file 1: Figure S1C). Here, HK2 is linked to lung carcinoma.