ALK-Lymphoma Analyte Control

The ALK translocation event was first identified in anaplastic large cell lymphomas (ALCL) and in this instance it is with the nucleophosmin (NPM) gene. The NPM-ALK fusion protein is readily detected with the use of anti-ALK antibodies such as ALK1, 4A5 and D5F3 clones available on the market. The relative expression of NPM-ALK is considerably higher than that of other ALK Fusion proteins such as EML4-ALK associated with non-small cell lung cancer.

These antibodies are able to be used across a variety of ALK fusion proteins by virtue of recognising the conserved C-terminal domain of the protein, which is the common fusion partner. Due to the relatively higher expression of NPM-ALK these antibodies are generally used at higher dilutions when compared to the working dilution of the same antibodies for EML4-ALK.

The cell lines provided by HistoCyte Laboratories Ltd for the ALK-Lymphoma product are positive and negative for the NPM-ALK product. The positive cell line is a Diffuse Large Cell Lymphoma and is also positive for CD30, which is important in the identification of ALCL.