Patent ID: 8241849

Claim:
A method of detecting the presence or absence of a polynucleotide in a sample, said polynucleotide selected from the group consisting of: (i) a polynucleotide which is at least 99% identical to the polynucleotide of SEQ ID NO:2, which encodes a polypeptide which is at least 99% identical to the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:1, wherein said polypeptide has human lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 activity; (ii) a fragment of (i) comprising at least nucleotides 11967-30301, which encodes a polypeptide which is at least 99% identical to the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:1, wherein said polypeptide has lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 activity; and (c) the full complement of (i) or (ii), said method comprising (a) contacting the sample with an isolated polynucleotide probe or primer, wherein said probe or primer is a fragment of a polynucleotide which is at least 99% identical to SEQ ID NO:2 and wherein said polynucleotide probe or primer comprises at least 20 contiguous nucleotides of SEQ ID NO:2 or its full complement which contains a transcription factor binding site at an NFAT_Q6 site at nucleotides 11523-11541, and (b) determining whether the polynucleotide probe or primer binds to a polynucleotide sequence in the sample, wherein binding of a polynucleotide of the sample to said probe or primer in step (a) detects the presence of a polynucleotide comprising SEQ ID NO:2.