Patent ID: 7951532

Claim:
A method of screening for a midkine transcription abnormality, said method comprising: (a) providing an isolated nucleic acid molecule comprising an expression cassette comprising a midkine promoter operably linked to a nucleotide sequence encoding a reporter, wherein said promoter comprises a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of: the nucleotide sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:7, SEQ ID NO:8, SEQ ID NO:9, SEQ ID NO:10, SEQ ID NO: 11, SEQ ID NO:12, SEQ ID NO:13, SEQ ID NO:14, SEQ ID NO:15, and SEQ ID NO:16; (b) incubating said isolated nucleic acid molecule with a test sample in vitro; (c) assaying the reporter by measuring the expression level or activity of the reporter; (d) comparing the expression level of the reporter operably linked to said promoter in the presence of the test sample to the expression level of said reporter operably linked to said promoter in the presence of a control sample; and (e) identifying an altered expression level as a midkine transcription abnormality.