Targeting HASPIN kinase disrupts SR protein–mediated RNA splicing and synergizes with BCL-2 inhibitor venetoclax in AML

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a blood cancer complicated by acquired drug resistance, disease relapse, and low overall survival rates. Combination therapies using multiple targeted inhibitors have been effective in treating patients with AML. However, combination treatments are limited by the number of usable targets and our ability to create rational pairings using complimentary molecular mechanisms. Here, we used a human kinase domain-targeted CRISPR screen to identify histone H3-associated protein (HASPIN) kinase as a significant, understudied dependency in AML. HASPIN depletion significantly reduced growth rate, induced a cell cycle arrest, and dysregulated transcription in AML. A proteomics data mining study characterized serine and arginine repeat enriched splicing factors (SR proteins) as a major category of HASPIN kinase substrates and highlighted the role of HASPIN as a splicing regulatory kinase. Accordingly, HASPIN depletion strongly dysregulated splicing in AML cells. HASPIN inhibitor CHR-6494 effectively reduced cell viability across AML subtypes while sparing healthy cells. Furthermore, a novel combination therapy consisting of CHR-6494 and B-cell lymphoma 2 (BCL-2) inhibitor venetoclax synergistically reduced AML cell viability and resensitized venetoclax-resistant AMLs to treatment. Our study presents HASPIN kinase as a novel therapeutic target for AML, underscores an underappreciated role of HASPIN in splicing regulation, and proposes a viable combination treatment for clinical testing.