Anaplastic lymphoma kinase: role in cancer pathogenesis and small-molecule inhibitor development for therapy.

ABSTRACT: Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), a receptor tyrosine kinase in the insulin receptor superfamily, was initially identified in constitutively activated oncogenic fusion forms - the most common being nucleophosmin-ALK - in anaplastic large-cell lymphomas, and subsequent studies have identified ALK fusions in diffuse large B-cell lymphomas, systemic histiocytosis, inflammatory myofibroblastic tumors, esophageal squamous cell carcinomas and non-small-cell lung carcinomas. More recently, genomic DNA amplification and protein overexpression, as well as activating point mutations, of ALK have been described in neuroblastomas. In addition to those cancers for which a causative role for aberrant ALK activity is well validated, more circumstantial links implicate the full-length, normal ALK receptor

SUBMITTER: Webb TR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2780428 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature