A previous study conducted by Wang and Simon used gene-expression profiling to select multiple candidates for synthetically lethal gene targets of p53.53 A series of kinase-encoding genes were found to be potential targets of p53-deficient tumors for new drug therapy, including polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1), cyclin-dependent kinase 16 (CDK16), receptor-like tyrosine kinase (RYK), aurora kinase A (AURKA), etc. Recently, increasing studies reported new synthetic lethal partners of p53 such as ATM, ATR, WEE1, CHK1, etc.,54–58 in various types of cancers (listed in Table 1). This evidence concerns the gene PLK1 and cancer.