Outlier Kinase Expression by RNA Sequencing as Targets for Precision Therapy

Protein kinases represent the most effective class of therapeutic targets in cancer; therefore, determination of kinase aberrations is a major focus of cancer genomic studies. Here, we analyzed transcriptome sequencing data from a compendium of 482 cancer and benign samples from 25 different tissue types, and defined distinct "outlier kinases" in individual breast and pancreatic cancer samples, based on highest levels of absolute and differential expression. Frequent outlier kinases in breast cancer included therapeutic targets like ERBB2 and FGFR4, distinct from MET, AKT2, and PLK2 in pancreatic cancer. Outlier kinases imparted sample-specific dependencies in various cell lines, as tested by siRNA knockdown and/or pharmacologic inhibition. Outlier expression of polo-like kinases was observed in a subset of KRAS-dependent pancreatic cancer cell lines, and conferred increased sensitivity to the pan-PLK inhibitor BI-6727. Our results suggest that outlier kinases represent effective precision therapeutic targets that are readily identifiable through RNA sequencing of tumors.