Species predicted to react based on 100% sequence homology:Mouse, Rat
Specificity / Sensitivity
Phospho-ALK (Tyr1278/1282/1283) Antibody detects ALK only when phosphorylated at Tyr1278/1282/1283, which is equivalent to Tyr338/342/343 of NPM-ALK. This antibody might also have slight reactivity toward ALK when it is phosphorylated at Tyr1283 alone. This antibody also reacts with leukocyte tyrosine kinase (LTK) phosphorylated at Tyr672/676/677.
Source / Purification
Polyclonal antibodies are produced by immunizing animals with a synthetic phosphopeptide corresponding to residues surrounding Tyr1278/1282/1283 of human ALK protein. Antibodies are purified by protein A and peptide affinity chromatography.
Background
Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) is a tyrosine kinase receptor for pleiotrophin (PTN), a growth factor involved in embryonic brain development (1-3). In ALK-expressing cells, PTN induces phosphorylation of both ALK and the downstream effectors IRS-1, Shc, PLCγ, and PI3 kinase (1). ALK was originally discovered as an NPM (nucleophosmin)-ALK fusion protein produced by a translocation (4). The NPM-ALK fusion protein is a constitutively active, oncogenic tyrosine kinase associated with anaplastic lymphoma (4). Activation of PLCγ by NPM-ALK has been suggested to be a crucial step for its mitogenic activity and may be important in the pathogenesis of anaplastic lymphomas (5). A distinct ALK oncogenic fusion protein involving ALK and EML4 has been described from a non-small cell lung cancer cell line, with corresponding fusion transcripts present in some cases of lung adenocarcinoma. The short, amino-terminal region of the microtubule-associated protein EML4 is fused to the kinase domain of ALK (6,7).Phosphorylation of ALK on Tyr1278/Tyr1282/Tyr1283 was identified at Cell Signaling Technology (CST) using PhosphoScan®, CST's LC-MS/MS platform for phosphorylation site discovery. Phosphorylation of ALK at these three sites was observed in select carcinoma cell lines and in tumors (6).