Diagnosis and treatment of cell proliferative disease having clonal macrophage involvement
AssigneeThe Regents of the University of California
InventorsMichael S. McGrath, Brian Herndier, Bruce Shiramizu
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Abstract
The presence of clonal macrophages in pre-cancerous and cancerous tissue represents an early stage of the disease in which clonal expansion of macrophages occurs due to HIV integration or other genetic mutation. Clonally expanded macrophages induce proliferation of surrounding tissue leading to cancerous tumor growth. The invention provides methods and kits for diagnosis of HIV- and non-HIV-associated clonal expansion of macrophages in pre-cancerous and cancerous tissue and other cell proliferative diseased tissue. The invention also provides methods for the treatment of cell proliferative diseases induced by clonal macrophage expansion and proliferation of surrounding tissue.
Claims11
A method of diagnosing the presence of clonally expanded macrophages in a sample, wherein said method comprises:
- determining by a nucleic acid hybridization technique the presence in macrophage DNA of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) integration at a location relative to a cell proliferative oncogene wherein said location is further characterized in that said HIV integration results in clonal expansion of said HIV infected macrophage.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.