Patent ID: 6905821

Claim:
A method of determining the relative level of Dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) gene expression in a tissue sample comprising: (a) obtaining a tumor sample from a patient; (b) fixing at least a portion of said tumor sample in paraffin to achieve a fixed and paraffin embedded (FPE) tumor tissue sample; (c) isolating mRNA from said (FPE) tumor tissue sample; (d) determining the amount of Dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) mRNA isolated from said FPE tumor tissue sample by amplifying the mRNA using an oligonucleotide primer SEQ ID NO: 1 and oligonucleotide primer SEQ ID NO: 2; and (e) comparing the amount of Dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) mRNA from step(d) to an amount of mRNA of an internal control gene.