ArticleThe American journal of surgical pathology2016
Primary and Metastatic Cutaneous Melanomas Express ALK Through Alternative Transcriptional Initiation.
Article in The American journal of surgical pathology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- ALK ATI in solid tumours: biological evidence, diagnostic challenges, and clinical relevance. a narrative review.Molecular biology reports · 2026Review
- Molecular Insights into the Diagnosis of Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma: Beyond Morphology and Immunophenotype.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Updates on Langerhans cell histiocytosis and other histiocytosis in children: invited review-challenges and novelties in paediatric tumours.Virchows Archiv : an international journal of pathology · 2025Review
- Comprehensive insights on genetic alterations and immunotherapy prognosis in Chinese melanoma patients.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- ALK fusions in the pan-cancer setting: another tumor-agnostic target?NPJ precision oncology · 2023Review
- Article
- Primary pulmonary epithelioid inflammatory myofibroblastic sarcoma: a rare entity and a literature review.Journal of pathology and translational medicine · 2022Article
- Morphologic features in a series of 352 Spitz melanocytic proliferations help predict their oncogenic drivers.Virchows Archiv : an international journal of pathology · 2022Article
- Melanoma Targeted Therapies beyondCancers · 2021Review
- Genomic and experimental evidence that ALKiScience · 2021Article
- Uncommon Subtypes of Malignant Melanomas: A Review Based on Clinical and Molecular Perspectives.Cancers · 2020Review
- ALK expression favorably impacts the prognosis ofOncology letters · 2018Article
- Primary and Metastatic Melanoma With NTRK Fusions.The American journal of surgical pathology · 2018Article
- Melanoma: Genetic Abnormalities, Tumor Progression, Clonal Evolution and Tumor Initiating Cells.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2017Review
- Alk and Ltk ligands are essential for iridophore development in zebrafish mediated by the receptor tyrosine kinase Ltk.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017Article
- Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase in Cutaneous Malignancies.Cancers · 2017Review
- Integrated analysis of gene expression and copy number identified potential cancer driver genes with amplification-dependent overexpression in 1,454 solid tumors.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- A review of kinase fusions in melanocytic tumors.Laboratory investigation; a journal of technical methods and pathology · 2017Review
- Recent advances in molecular genetics of melanoma progression: implications for diagnosis and treatment.F1000Research · 2016Review
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
A number of common driver mutations have been identified in melanoma, but other genetic or epigenetic aberrations are also likely to play a role in the pathogenesis of melanoma and present potential therapeutic targets. Translocations of the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), for example, have been reported in spitzoid melanocytic neoplasms leading to kinase-fusion proteins that result in immunohistochemically detectable ALK expression. In this study, we sought to determine whether ALK was also expressed in nonspitzoid primary and metastatic cutaneous melanomas. ALK immunohistochemistry was performed on 603 melanomas (303 primary and 300 metastatic tumors) from 600 patients. ALK immunohistochemistry expression was identified in 7 primary and 9 metastatic tumors. In 5 of 7 primary tumors and in 6 of 9 metastatic lesions, the majority of tumor cells were immunoreactive for ALK. In the other 2 primary and 3 metastatic lesions, positive staining was identified in less than half of the tumor cells. ALK positivity was found in the presence or absence of BRAF or NRAS mutations. In contrast to prior observations with ALK-positive Spitz tumors, none of the ALK-positive melanomas harbored a translocation. Instead, the ALK-positive melanomas predominantly expressed the recently described ALK isoform, ALK, which lacks the extracellular and transmembrane domains of wild-type ALK, consists primarily of the intracellular tyrosine kinase domain, and originates from an alternative transcriptional initiation site within the ALK gene. The findings are clinically relevant as patients with metastatic melanoma who have ALK expression may potentially benefit from treatment with ALK kinase inhibitors.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.