Patent ID: 8580509

Claim:
A method for identifying or characterizing prostate cancer in a subject comprising: contacting a sample obtained from the subject, wherein the sample is selected from the group of consisting of prostate tissue, blood, urine, semen, prostatic secretions and prostate cells, with a nucleic acid diagnostic reagent, and detecting the presence, or determining the absence, in the sample of: (a) a gene fusion having or resulting from the fusion of, rearrangement of, or genomic deletion between, a 5′ portion from a TMPRSS2 gene and a 3′ portion from an ETS family member gene, wherein the ETS family member gene is selected from the group consisting of ERG, ETV1, ETV4, and FLI1; and (b) a PCA3 nucleic acid molecule, wherein detecting the presence in the sample of the gene fusion and PCA3 identifies or characterizes prostate cancer in the subject.