Methods for profiling and quantitating cell-free RNA
AssigneeThe Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
InventorsLian Chye Winston Koh, Stephen R. Quake, Hei-Mun Christina Fan, Wenying Pan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The invention generally relates to methods for assessing the health of a tissue by characterizing circulating nucleic acids in a biological sample. According to certain embodiments, methods for assessing the health of a tissue include the steps of detecting a sample level of RNA in a biological sample, comparing the sample level of RNA to a reference level of RNA specific to the tissue, determining whether a difference exists between the sample level and the reference level, and characterizing the tissue as abnormal if a difference is detected.
Claims18
A method comprising:
- (a) obtaining a first plasma or serum sample at a first time point from a human test subject having disease of their liver;
- (b) performing at least one of reverse transcription, polynucleotide amplification, sequencing, and microarray hybridization on cell-free messenger RNA of the first plasma or serum sample to obtain:
- a first quantity of a first cell-free messenger RNA, wherein the first cell-free messenger RNA is transcribed from a first gene selected from activating transcription factor 5 (ATF5), cytochrome P450 family 2 subfamily E member 1 (CYP2E1), histidine rich glycoprotein (HRG), and orosomucoid 1 (ORM1);
- and
- a first quantity of a second cell-free messenger RNA, wherein the second cell-free messenger RNA is transcribed from a second gene selected from tripartite motif containing 21 (TRIM21), Ras p21 protein activator 2 (RASA2), ELL associated factor 2 (EAF2), and C-C motif chemokine ligand 4 (CCL4);
- (c) obtaining a second plasma or serum sample from the human test subject at a second time point;
- (d) performing at least one of reverse transcription, polynucleotide amplification, sequencing, and microarray hybridization on cell-free messenger RNA of the second plasma or serum sample to obtain second quantities of the of a first cell-free messenger RNA and the second cell-free messenger RNA;
- and
- (e) performing a biopsy on a liver sample obtained from the human test subject.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.