Current progress in targeting mitotic kinases in PDAC

For a number of reasons, and unlike most other cancers, the mortality rate of PDAC is set to increase and, as such, it is predicted to become the second most common cause of cancer related mortality in the western world by the end of the current decade. One of the main reasons for this is the dire lack of robust therapeutic options. The clinical landscape of PDAC therapeutics is changing at an encouraging pace, exemplified by the breakthroughs in targeting not only KRAS but developing mutant-specific drugs against it. Nevertheless, the clinical community is still faced with a dire lack of effective therapeutics. The targeting of mitotic kinases – here limited to CDKs, Wee1, Chk1, Plk1 and the Aurora kinases – offers one potential avenue for exploitation. Here, we discuss ongoing efforts to target the mitotic kinases and present the advances that have been made for each, whilst also presenting the clinical and therapeutic perspectives for each category.