Patent ID: 7935482

Claim:
A method of determining whether a human subject is suffering from or is at risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, based on a blood sample from the subject, the sample providing a source of RNAs, the method comprising: using quantitative amplification to obtain a quantitative measure of the amount of at least 2 constituents as distinct RNA constituents in the subject sample, wherein the first constituent is selected from the group consisting of TLR2, MMP9 and TGFB1, and the second constituent is selected from the group consisting of CD4, PTGS2 and HSPA1A, wherein the constituents are selected so as to distinguish from a normal and a rheumatoid arthritis-diagnosed subject with at least 75% accuracy, and wherein such measure for each constituent is obtained under measurement conditions that are (i) within a degree of repeatability of better than five percent; and (ii) the efficiencies of amplification are within two percent for each constituent, to arrive at a subject profile data set of a plurality of members; assessing the subject profile data set; and comparing the subject profile data set to a baseline profile data set, wherein the baseline profile data set is derived from one or more subjects known not to be suffering from rheumatoid arthritis; wherein a change in the expression pattern of the subject profile data set as compared to the baseline profile data set indicates that the subject is suffering from or is at risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis.