Patent ID: 8518649

Claim:
A method for constructing a stress response (SR) pathway profile for a subject, comprising: (i) constructing a panel of at least 3 stress response (SR) biomarkers; (ii) obtaining a biological sample from the subject containing the SR biomarkers in the panel; (iii) determining quantitative immunochemical measurements of the SR biomarkers in the panel by computerized image analysis of staining intensity (SI); (iv) calculating biomarker scores of the SR biomarkers in the panel based on the staining intensity, wherein a score of 0 represents a baseline score for a normal control; and (v) calculating a pathway profile score (Z) from the biomarker scores according to an equation of Formula I: Z = [ Z 1 ⋮ Z 10 ] ≈ Z 1 = f 1 , 1 ⁢ y 1 + f 1 , 2 ⁢ y 2 + … ⁢ + f 1 , 40 ⁢ y 40 ⋮ Z 10 = f 2 , 1 + f 2 , 2 ⁢ y 2 + … ⁢ + f 2 , 40 ⁢ y 40 or Z p , i = ∑ p = 1 10 ⁢ ∑ i = 1 40 ⁢ f pi ⁢ yi where; Z is a SR pathway profile; Z p is the SR pathway profile for the p-th pathway, p=1, . . . , 10; y i is the i-th SR biomarker's score, i=1, . . . , 40; and f pi is a is a constant that indicates the relatedness between the p-th SR pathway and the i-th SR biomarker; (vi) comparing the pathway profile score from the sample to the pathway profile score of normal control, wherein pathways having a difference in score in the sample as compared to the normal control are included in an SR pathway profile.