Endogenous retroviruses up-regulated in prostate cancer
AssigneeNovartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Inc.
InventorsPablo D. Garcia, Stephen F. Hardy, Jaime Escobedo, Lewis T. Williams
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Human endogenous retroviruses of the HML-2 family show up-regulated expression in prostate tumors. This finding can be used in prostate cancer screening, diagnosis and therapy.
Claims7
A method of screening for early stage prostate cancer, the method comprising a step of assaying, in a patient sample comprising prostate cells, an RNA comprising a Gag or Pol encoding sequence of a human endogenous mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV)-like subgroup 2 (HML-2) retrovirus, HERV-K (CH), wherein an increased level of said RNA of at least 150% relative to a control sample level of RNA from cells that are not prostate tumor cells indicates that the patient should undergo further testing for the presence of prostate cancer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.