Patent ID: 8093011

Claim:
A method of predicting the sensitivity of tumor cell growth to inhibition by an EGFR kinase inhibitor, comprising: assessing the level of two or more epithelial biomarkers expressed by a sample of tumor cells relative to the expression level of said biomarkers in a control cell sample that is either an epithelial carcinoma cell or a mesenchymal-like carcinoma cell, to determine whether the epithelial biomarker expression is more similar to that of an epithelial carcinoma cell or a mesenchymal-like carcinoma cell; and predicting the sensitivity of tumor cell growth to inhibition by an EGFR kinase inhibitor, wherein simultaneous high expression levels of the two or more tumor cell epithelial biomarkers, as observed in epithelial carcinoma cells, correlates with high sensitivity of tumor cell growth to inhibition by EGFR kinase inhibitors, and wherein the tumor cells are non-small-cell lung, pancreatic, colorectal, hepatocellular or breast carcinoma cells, the EGFR kinase inhibitor comprises erlotinib, the two or more epithelial biomarkers are selected from the group consisting of (a) E-cadherin and γ-catenin, (b) E-cadherin and α-catenin, (c) E-cadherin and Brk, (d) E-cadherin, γ-catenin, and Brk, and (e) E-cadherin, γ-catenin, and α-catenin, and wherein tumor cell growth is determined by measuring tumor size or a molecular determinant of cell proliferation.