Patent ID: 7371527
Filing Date: 2008-05-13
Classification: C12Q

Abstract:
1. A method of detecting lung or esophageal cancer cells in a sample, comprising: contacting a 5′ promoter region of an endogenous nucleic acid molecule encoding GATA-4 from a control lung or esophageal cell sample and a suspected lung or esophageal cancer cell sample with a chemical reagent that selectively modifies an unmethylated cytosine residue in a CpG dinucleotide of the nucleic acid, wherein the reagent produces a modified nucleic acid template comprising a uracil-containing GATA-4 promoter, and detecting a non-uracil containing GATA-4 promoter template and a template comprising a uracil-containing GATA-4 promoter in the control cell or cancer cell sample, wherein detection of a non-uracil containing GATA-4 promoter template in the cancer cell sample is indicative of epigenetic silencing, and wherein the detection of the epigenetically silenced GATA-4 promoter indicates that the sample comprises lung or esophageal cancer cells therein.