Patent ID: 8137914

Claim:
A method of detecting a variant form of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) mRNA comprising: (a) combining a sample suspected of containing the variant form of AFP mRNA wherein the variant form of AFP cDNA comprises exons 1-14 of the cDNA encoding AFP in which exon 1 has been replaced by the polynucleotide sequence of exon A (SEQ ID NO:1), or a fusion of exon A and exon B (SEQ ID NO:2) with: (i) a forward primer capable of hybridizing to the exon A (SEQ ID NO:1) or the fusion of exon A and exon B (SEQ ID NO:2) of the cDNA encoding the variant AFP, (ii) a reverse primer that is at least 10 nucleotides long and corresponds to a sequence from AFP exons 2-14: and (iii) reagents for PCR to form a mixture, (b) subjecting the mixture to thermocycling, and (c) determining the absence or the presence of the cDNA corresponding to at least a portion of the variant form of AFP mRNA in the thermocycled mixture, wherein the presence of the cDNA indicates that the sample comprises the variant form of AFP.