Patent ID: 9702880
Date: 2017-07-11
CPC Classifications: A61K,C12N,C12Q,G01N

Claim:
1. A method of diagnosing progression of a cancerous prostate tissue or tumor to an advanced stage of cancer, said method comprising: detecting levels of expression of miR 15a and miR 16-1 in one or more cells from the cancerous prostate tissue or cancerous prostate tumor, wherein miR 15a has the sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO:4 and miR 16-1 has the sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO:5, and wherein the detecting step comprises performing Northern hybridization or in situ hybridization, using at least one miR 15a specific probe comprising sequence specific for SEQ ID NO:4 and at least one miR 16-1 specific probe comprising sequence specific for SEQ ID NO:5; whereby progression of prostate cancer to an advanced stage is diagnosed when detected levels of miR 15a and miR 16-1 are down-regulated in the cells from the cancerous prostate tissue or cancerous prostate tumor as compared to normal prostate cells, primary prostate tumor cells or benign prostate tissue; and wherein the at least one miR 15a specific probe and the at least one miR16-1 specific probe are each 100% specific for the seed sequence AGCAGCA.