1.Introduction
ALL is a serious hematological system disease with highly aggressive
characteristics(Terwilliger & Abdul-Hay, 2017). The lymphocytes
proliferate and accumulate abnormally in the bone marrow, and transfer
to other tissues and organs, causing systemic organs and tissue
infiltrations and infections, seriously affecting normal hematopoietic
function(Tan, Bertulfo & Sanda,
2017). ALL includes T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) and
B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL). Among them, T-ALL accounts
for about 12% to 15% in pediatric ALL cases (You, Medeiros & Hsi,
2015). ALL is prone to occur in adolescents and children, and patients
under 20 years old account for 60% of the total cases. The five-year
event-free survival (EFS) of ALL is 60%-75%(den Hoed et al., 2015),
significantly lower than other types of leukemia. With the development
of new drugs and the application of new technologies, the survival rate
of ALL patients has improved. In pediatric ALL, overall cure rates are
approaching 90%,but in adult ALL, long-term survival rates are
~ 35 - 50%(Wei & Cleary, 2014), EFS and overall
survival (OS) are still less than 70%, and the prognosis of relapsed
and refractory ALL is poor(Sánchez-Martínez et al., 2019). Due to
ethical reasons, clinically common refractory diseases are obviously
impossible to replicate in human body to study the pathological and
genetic mechanisms of disease occurrence(Adams et al., 1985). The
remarkable functions of animal models are to: (1) simulate human genetic
conditions and tumor growth microenvironment, (2) evaluate drug
treatment effects, targets and ADR, (3) assess biomarkers related to
tumor malignant transformation, (4) study the exogenous predisposing
factors and pathogenesis of leukemia. At present, the animals commonly
used to study ALL are mainly including mice, rats, zebrafish andDrosophila melanogaster (Milne, 2017). Among them, mice are very
similar to humans in terms of genetics and hematopoietic system, and
this unique advantage makes it important to establish mouse leukemia
models to study the cellular molecular biology, biochemical and
immunological characteristics, pathophysiological changes, pathogenesis,
and drug treatment of human leukemia(Fortier & Graubert, 2010).
Moreover, mice have the advantages of low price and good
reproducibility, and the mouse xenotransplantation model and transgenic
mouse model have been paid more and more attention and application. This
article reviews the latest research progress of animal models of ALL.