Patent ID: 7674589

Claim:
A method for detecting the presence of a cellular target protein and a cellular target nucleic acid in a locus of interest in a tissue sample containing cells of interest, wherein said cells of interest may comprise normal cells or may comprise abnormal cells, or both, and said locus of interest comprises a region containing cells of interest, said method comprising the steps of: (a) applying a morphological stain to a tissue sample effective to provide a stained tissue sample; (b) identifying a locus of interest in said stained tissue sample; (c) contacting a section of the tissue sample with an antibody which specifically binds to the target protein, wherein said section includes said locus of interest; (d) determining binding of the antibody to the section of tissue sample; (e) hybridizing a labeled nucleic acid probe to the target nucleic acid in the same section of tissue sample which includes the locus of interest; (f) detecting the presence of the labeled nucleic acid probe in the section of tissue sample; and (g) comparing the results of step (d) with the results of step (f), wherein the morphological stain used in step (a) does not significantly interfere with detection of the labeled nucleic acid probe used in step (e).