Patent ID: 7326778

Claim:
An isolated and purified DNA molecule consisting of a sequence of at least about 20 nucleotides of an hMSH2 allele found in an tumor, wherein said DNA molecule contains at least one mutation relative to hMSH2 shown in SEQ ID NO: 1, said mutation selected from the group consisting of: a) a C to T transition at nucleotide 1934 as shown in SEQ ID NO: 1 (codon 622 as shown in FIG. 5B ) which changes a proline to a leucine; b) a deletion of nucleotides 793 to 942 as shown in SEQ ID NO: 1; c) a C to T transition at nucleotide 1285 as shown in SEQ ID NO: 1 (codon 406 as shown in FIG. 5A ) which changes an arginine to a stop codon; d) a C to T transition at nucleotide 1984 as shown in SEQ ID NO: 1 (codon 639 as shown in FIG. 5B ) which changes a histidine to a tyrosine; and e) a frameshift at nucleotide 2056 as shown in SEQ ID NO: 1 (codon 663 as shown in FIG. 5B ) which changes an ATG codon to TGTG.