PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16255718
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2019-01
Publication Date: 2019-05
Patent Classification: ["435", "006120"]

Abstract:
Provided herein are products and processes for detecting the presence or absence of minor nucleic acid species in a sample containing a mixture of minor nucleic acid species and one or more major nucleic acid species, where the amount (frequency or copy number) of the minor nucleic acid species is less than that of the major nucleic acid species. Certain methods include amplifying the mixture and extending the resulting amplicons using chain terminating reagents and extension primers that specifically hybridize to the amplicons, where a chain terminating reagent specific for the major nucleic acid species has a concentration that is less than a chain terminating reagent that is specific for a minor nucleic acid species. Skewing the concentrations of the chain terminating reagents in favor of high concentrations of the chain terminating reagents specific for the minor nucleic acid species relative to a chain terminating reagent specific for a major nucleic acid species improves the detection limit (sensitivity) of detecting minor nucleic acid species present at low frequency or copy number in the mixture. In addition, the signals generated from the extension product of the major nucleic acid species amplicon can serve as a positive control and permit quantification of the minor nucleic acid species relative to the major nucleic acid species in the mixture.

Claim (Index 1):
A method for quantifying one or more minor nucleic acid species in a nucleic acid population comprising a mixture of the one or more minor nucleic acid species and a major nucleic acid species, wherein the minor nucleic acid species are variants of the same major nucleic acid species and are each present in a copy number that is less than the copy number of the major nucleic acid species, the method comprising:\n (a) amplifying target regions of the mixture with amplification primer pairs under amplification conditions comprising dNTPs, whereby an amplified mixture of nucleic acids comprising major and minor nucleic acid species is produced; (b) contacting the amplified mixture with extension primers under extension conditions comprising chain terminating reagents specific for (i) each of the one or more minor nucleic acid species, and (ii) the major nucleic acid species, whereby the primers are extended up to the nucleotide positions that are different in the minor nucleic acid species relative to the major nucleic acid species, thereby generating chain terminated extension products corresponding to the minor nucleic acid species and the major nucleic acid species, respectively, wherein: (1) the concentrations of each of the chain terminating reagents are known; and (2) the concentration of the chain terminating reagent specific for the major nucleic acid species is less than the concentration(s) of the chain terminating reagent(s) specific for the one or more minor nucleic acid species; (c) determining the ratio of the amount(s) of extension products corresponding to each of the one or more minor nucleic acid species relative to the amount of extension product corresponding to the major nucleic acid species; and (d) based on the ratio of (c), and based on the concentration(s) of the chain terminating reagents specific for the one or more minor nucleic acid species relative to the concentration of the chain terminating reagent specific for the major nucleic acid species, quantifying the amount(s) of minor nucleic acid species relative to the amount of the major nucleic acid species.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 44.0
- Percentile: 99.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.69048
- Patent Class: 435.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15136024', '13551486', '14720179', '13193390', '10903268']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.511716834869473
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.6057823044659247
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.5211233818291181
- Mean Citation Score: 304.66044
- Max Citation Score: 523.7029
- Similarity Product: 489.440741434443

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test