Patent ID: 7785842

Claim:
A method of determining a ratio of the amount or concentration of an extracellular human RNA from plasma or serum from a human that is a coding RNA comprising an open reading frame encoding an amino acid sequence to the amount or concentration of an extracellular human RNA from said plasma or serum from said human that is a non-coding RNA, the method comprising the steps of: a) obtaining plasma or serum from a blood specimen from a human; b) mixing the plasma or serum obtained from the blood specimen from the human with a RNase inhibitor agent and producing a plasma or serum mixture; c) extracting extracellular human RNAs from said plasma or serum mixture and producing extracted human RNAs, wherein a portion of the extracted human RNAs comprises said coding RNA and a portion of said extracted human RNAs comprises said non-coding RNA; d) amplifying said coding RNA from a portion of said extracted human RNAs comprising said coding RNA using primers or probes specific for said coding RNA, or cDNA therefrom and producing a first amplified product, and amplifying said non-coding RNA from a portion of said extracted human RNAs comprising said non-coding RNA using primers or probes specific for said non-coding RNA, or cDNA therefrom and producing a second amplified product; and e) determining the amount or concentration of the coding RNA or cDNA therefrom by assaying said first amplified product, and determining the amount or concentration of the non-coding RNA or cDNA therefrom by assaying said second amplified product, and thereby the ratio of the amount or concentration of the coding RNA to the amount or concentration of the non-coding RNA is determined.