PLK1 and neoplasm: When investigating the factors that influence the efficacy of PLK1 inhibitors, some studies suggest that cells with p53 deficiency are more susceptible to PLK1 inhibitors, leading to apoptosis (Guan et al., 2005; Degenhardt et al., 2010; Sur et al., 2009); however, other studies suggest that the presence of p53 may increase the sensitivity of tumor cells to PLK1 inhibitors (Sanhaji et al., 2012; Sanhaji et al., 2013; Van den Bossche et al., 2019).