Frontiers in Bioscience-Scholar (FBS) is published by IMR Press from Volume 13 Issue 1 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.
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Our current understanding of oncogenic Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK)-induced lymphomagenesis has relied for over 20 years on multiple and complementary studies performed on various experimental models, encompassing ALK oncogene expressing cells, their grafts into immune-compromised mice, the generation of genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs) and, when available, the use of patient samples from Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (ALCL) tumour banks. Of note, and to our knowledge, no ALK-positive ALCL 3D culture system has been described so far. In this review, we will first outline how these different cell and mouse models were designed, and what key findings they revealed (or confirmed) towards oncogenic ALK-induced lymphomagenesis. Secondly, we will discuss how recent and revolutionary advances in genetic engineering technology are likely to complete our understanding of ALK-related diseases in an effort to improve current therapeutic approaches.