Studying the pathogenesis of BCR-ABL+ leukemia in mice.
Animal models of BCR-ABL+ leukemias have provided important new knowledge about the molecular pathophysiology of these diseases, and answered questions that are difficult or impossible to address using BCR-ABL-expressing cell lines or primary Ph+ leukemia samples from patients. The power of mouse models lies in their ability to recapitulate precisely the phenotypes of BCR-ABL+ leukemias in vivo, but this comes at the price of significant complexity. Here I review recent studies of leukemias induced in mice by BCR-ABL with an emphasis on the intricate nature of these diseases and the need for careful pathological and molecular analysis.
Van Etten
Richard A
RA
The Center for Blood Research and Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, MA 02115, USA. vanetten@cbr.med.harvard.edu
D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D016044:Fusion Proteins, bcr-abl; D015464:Leukemia, Myelogenous, Chronic, BCR-ABL Positive / Q000209:etiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D051379:Mice; D011505:Protein-Tyrosine Kinases / Q000235:genetics*
D011505:Protein-Tyrosine Kinases; D016044:Fusion Proteins, bcr-abl