Animal Models of Acute lymphoblastic leukemia: recapitulating the human
disease to evaluate drug efficacy and discover therapeutic targets
Abstract
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a malignant hematologic tumor with
highly aggressive characteristics, which has few clinically effective
drugs. It is meaningful to gain a better understanding of its
pathogenesis in order to discover and evaluate potential therapeutic
drugs and new treatment targets. However, the process of new drugs from
research and development to clinical application is long and difficult.
Many promising drugs were rejected by the US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) due to serious adverse drug reactions (ADR) in
clinical phase I trials. Animal models provide us with an excellent tool
to understand the complex pathological mechanisms of human diseases, to
evaluate the potential of new targeted drugs and to assess the potential
ADR they may have on healthy organs. In this article we briefly
introduce the clinical status of ALL, review ALL animal models’
progression, their roles in revealing the pathogenesis of ALL and drug
development.