※ Alk family introduction

    ALK (Anaplastic lymphoma kinase) are tyrosin protein kinase. ALK is a receptor tyrosine kinase which contain a transmembrane domain and an extracellular domain. Another member LTK (leukocyte tyrosine kinase) is classificated into ALK family for its sequence similarity. ALK plays a critical role in the development of the brain and exerts its effects on specific neurons in the nervous system. ALK posseses the oncogene potential and can be oncogenic by forming a fusion gene with others genes or mutation. NPM-ALK have been found to associate with Anaplastic large-cell lymphoma. The EML4-ALK is responsible for 3%-5% of Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (1).

Reference
1. Wikipedia annotation:   Anaplastic lymphoma kinase