Patent Application: US-201214353959-A

Abstract:
the invention encompasses molecular beacon probes for monitoring the presence of human breast cancer biomarkers and for the analysis of breast cancer metastasis . the molecular beacon is an oligonucleotide probe which sensitively and specifically identifies biomarker mrna in samples , in the presence of serum , in minimal time using fluorescence detection . the molecular beacons may be comprised in kits for the detection / quantitation of cancer biomarkers in clinical samples . the invention provides improvements in simplicity , accuracy , and speed over current methods , which could allow for improved patient treatment and prognoses .

Description:
prolactin inducible protein ( pip ) is a secreted protein that is over - expressed in breast carcinoma and thought to have a role in tumor proliferation and metastasis . pip mrna has been used for detection of breast cancer metastasis using rt - pcr . a molecular beacon specific for pip mrna was designed for the simple detection of breast cancer metastasis . the mrna sequence for pip mrna ( ncbi accessionnm_002652 ) was determined using genbank entries and a literature reference . the mb has a stem - loop structure with a suitable donor fluorophore and acceptor quencher pair . suitable donor fluorophores for use in molecular beacons are known to those skilled in the art . moreover , quencher moieties of a donor - acceptor pair are also known to those skilled in the art . the pip mb has a stem - loop structure is modified to include a tetrachloro - 6 - carboxyfluorescein on the 5 ′ end and black hole quencher ® 1 ( biosearch technologies , inc ., novato , calif .) on the 3 ′ end . black hole quencher ® 1 quenches tetrachloro - 6 - carboxyfluorescein emission when the stem is base - paired (“ closed ”) and the two moieties are in close proximity . the bases in the loop of the mb and some of the bases in the stem are complementary to pip mrna ( see fig1 ). the mb sequence is complementary to the region of conserved secondary structure and incorporates nucleotides at the 5 ′ and 3 ′ ends which are self - complementary , thereby forming a closed , stem - loop structure . a pip mb dna , 5 ′- tgtgcaacgacggctgcaatttgcaca - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 6 ), was chemically synthesized and modified to incorporate a fluorophore and a quencher at the 5 ′ and 3 ′ ends , respectively . when the mb binds pip mrna , the base - pairing of the stem is disrupted ( the mb is “ open ”), and the quencher and fluorophore are no longer sufficiently close to produce quenching . this results in fluorescence emission . the designed mb is complementary to the pip mrna bases indicated in fig2 . to confirm mb - mrna hybridization , pip mrna was spiked into a sample containing mb in buffer and the resulting fluorescence emission was monitored over time . fig3 illustrates that the mb binds pip mrna resulting in an increase in fluorescence intensity . the initial fluorescence intensity of the mb is low as the stem is closed and fluorophore and quencher are in close proximity ( fig3 a ). after mrna is added , there is a decrease in fluorescence intensity due to dilution of the sample followed by a gradual increase in fluorescence intensity , indicating that mb and mrna molecules form a stable duplex that causes spatial separation of the fluorophore and quencher . the nucleic acids in the sample are then heat denatured and annealed by slowly cooling the sample . after annealing , the fluorescence intensity increases dramatically as more mb and mrna duplexes are formed . pip mrna is too long ( 564 bases ) to synthesize by chemical methods , so a shorter mrna fragment that was predicted with energy minimization by mfold to have locally conserved secondary structure in the mb binding region ( bases 292 through 379 in the full - length sequence , fig2 ) was designed . eight ( 8 ) bases were excluded from the mrna fragment , which bases were not predicted to be involved in base - pairing interactions ( marked with stars in fig2 ), and are expected to have no effect on the mrna conformation . this secondary - structure construct having the sequence set forth in seq id no . 2 was synthesized to be a target mrna for the pip mb and was used as a surrogate target to represent the full - length , native pip mrna . the secondary - structure construct forms all of the hydrogen bonds expected to require disruption for mb binding and consists of only 87 bases and , thus , can be chemically synthesized as dna and transcribed to rna . to test the validity of the secondary - structure construct of seq id no . 2 as a surrogate for the full - length mrna , the binding of the mb to the secondary - structure construct target was compared to the mb binding to the full - length mrna target . as with the full - length mrna ( fig3 a ), the initial fluorescence intensity of the mb alone is low , the fluorescence intensity increases gradually after mrna is added , and the fluorescence intensity increases dramatically after annealing the mb and mrna ( fig3 b ). this indicates that the mb binds to both constructs . it is noted that the full - length mrna opens the mb less effectively than the shorter construct , which is evidenced by the slower increase in fluorescence intensity upon addition of mrna as well as the smaller overall change in intensity from fully closed to fully open mb ( fig3 a ). this difference is likely due to intermolecular interactions within the full - length mrna that are not accounted for in the secondary structure construct . an assay for pip mrna was developed in which the measured response is the difference in fluorescence intensity of the fully closed mb before mrna is added from the fully open mb after annealing with mrna ( fig4 ). both the secondary - structure construct of seq id no . 2 ( fig5 , solid line ) and the full - length mrna ( fig5 , dashed line ) produce concentration dependent responses from the mb over a range in rna concentration from 250 pm to 2 . 5 nm . the difference in binding efficiency of the mb to the full - length structure compared to the shorter construct ultimately results in a less sensitive assay ( about 4 fold ) for the full - length mrna compared to the secondary structure construct , shown by the smaller slope of the calibration . given the difference in slopes of the calibration curves in fig5 , it was investigated whether a correction factor could account for the difference in response and reliably predict the concentration of a sample of full - length mrna when the shorter construct is used for calibration . using a calibration curve made with secondary structure mrna and a conversion factor of 0 . 33 based on the linear regressions to account for difference in secondary structure versus full - length calibration curves , a sample of containing 1 . 50 nm full - length mrna had a measured concentration of 1 . 66 nm , which is approximately 10 % error in the concentration . these data demonstrate that the secondary structure construct is a good model for the full - length mrna and that the secondary construct mrna may substitute for the full - length mrna in the analysis of pip mb binding . in the assay , the mb response to pip mrna increases linearly , reproducibly ( rsd below 10 %), and with sufficient sensitivity to distinguish a range of concentrations up to at least 2 . 5 nm , with a limit of detection of 167 pm ( fig6 , solid line ). the addition of non - target rna to the sample resulted in a similar response , with good reproducibility ( rsd below 5 %) and a similar sensitivity evidenced by the slope , indicating the specificity of the pip mb for pip mrna ( fig6 , dashed line ). the limit of detection is also similar at 141 pm . in addition to being highly sensitive , the total time for the assay is just a few hours . the molecular beacon design may help account for the low limit of detection and sensitivity of the assay . pip mrna is complementary to the mb loop region as well as part of the stem ( fig1 ). complementarity in the stem is predicted to increase affinity between the mb and target relative to the affinity of the mb self - complementarity as mbs with target - complementary stems have been shown to form more stable duplexes with target molecules than loop - only mbs . to evaluate the robustness of the assay , measurements of pip mrna directly in serum were made . because heat denaturing nucleic acids also denatures serum proteins rendering them insoluble , a modified assay which measures change in intensity without heating the sample was developed . the mb was incubated for 3 hours directly in pip mrna - spiked serum . for comparison , the modified assay was also performed in mrna - spiked assay buffer . a similar sensitivity and reproducibility ( below 10 % rsd for all but one data point ) in buffered samples as in serum samples , with no need to clean or prepare the serum before analysis ( fig7 , solid is buffer and dashed is serum ) was observed . the lods were comparable with 144 pm for buffered samples and 57 pm for undiluted serum samples . this significantly reduces analysis time over other methods to just a few hours by eliminating the need for sample cleaning before analysis . in an embodiment , the instant invention encompasses a method of detecting and quantifying the amount of pip mrna in a sample , wherein the sample may comprise serum , the method comprising the steps of contacting a sample which may contain pip mrna with a pip molecular beacon under conditions which allow binding of the molecular beacon to the pip mrna , measuring the amount of fluorescence in the sample , measuring the amount of fluorescence in a control sample which has a pip molecular beacon but does not comprise pip mrna , and calculating the difference in the amount of fluorescence in the test and control samples . an increase in the fluorescence intensity of the test sample over the fluorescence intensity of the control sample means that pip mrna is present in the sample . in an embodiment , the pip molecular beacon of the invention consists essentially of the sequence set forth in seq id no . 6 , wherein the 5 ′ nucleotide of the sequence set forth in seq id no . 6 is labeled with at least one fluorophore and the 3 ′ nucleotide of the sequence set forth in seq id no . 6 is labeled with at least one quencher . the language “ consisting essentially of ” means that in addition to those components which are mandatory , other components may also be present in compositions , provided that the essential , basic and / or novel characteristics of the compositions are not materially affected by their presence . in a further embodiment , the invention encompasses kits which comprise the pip molecular beacon and a positive control nucleic acid , wherein the sequence of the positive control nucleic acid is set forth in seq id no . 5 . in another embodiment , a molecular beacon for her2 mrna , with excitation and emission maxima at 599 nm and 615 nm , respectively , is designed . her2 is a cell membrane receptor tyrosine kinase involved in signal transduction pathways that lead to growth and differentiation . over - expression of her2 can be associated with tumor proliferation and metastasis . the pre - mrna for her2 is alternatively spliced into three splice variants so the molecular beacon was designed to be complementary to a structural motif present in the bases conserved among the splice variants . the her2 molecular beacon comprising the sequence 5 ′- tgccaccagttcagcaggtccgtggca - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 8 ) was chemically synthesized and modified to incorporate a texas redo fluorophore and a black hole quencher ® 2 at the 5 ′ and 3 ′ ends , respectively . a secondary structure construct was designed to represent the binding region of the full - length her2 mrna . the full - length her2 mrna is 4 , 624 bases and the secondary structure construct represents bases 2 , 651 through 2 , 724 in the full - length sequence ( ncbi accession nos . m12036 , nm_004448 , and nm_001005862 in genbank ) wherein two nucleotides ( gg ) were added for transcriptional efficiency . the nucleotide sequence of the her2 mrna secondary structure construct is 5 ′- ggugccucuuagaccauguccgggaaaaccgcggacgccugggcucccaggac cugcugaacugguguaugcagau - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 9 ). a mb for hmam may be designed to be complementary to a region of hmam mrna . hmam mrna is highly breast specific , though recent studies have found expression in ovary , uterus , cervix , and skin tissues . hmam is up - regulated in the majority of breast carcinomas . the hmam molecular beacon is expected to provide concentration - dependent , sensitive , specific responses to hmam mrna . reference may now be made to various embodiments of the invention as set forth in the examples and illustrated in the attached figures . all nucleic acids were purified by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis ( page ) before use . nucleic acids were denatured at 70 ° c . for 2 minutes , mixed 2 : 1 with loading dye ( 8 m urea ; 20 mm edta ; 5 mm tris - hcl , ph 7 . 5 ; 0 . 5 % w / v xylene cyanol ; and 0 . 5 % w / v bromophenol blue ), and separated on 20 percent polyacrylamide gels ( 24 g urea ; 25 ml 40 % polyacrylamide ; 10 ml 5 × tbe ) at 17 w per gel for approximately 3 hours . dna was visualized with uv shadowing ( 100 - 280 nm ). rna was visualized by ethidium bromide staining of a thin , vertical strip of gel . dna and unstained rna were extracted by cutting bands from the gels , crushing , and tumbling over night in water . this process was performed twice and the eluate from both extractions was combined . extracts were purified by chloroform extraction ( 24 : 1 chloroform : isoamyl alcohol solution saturated with te buffer ) and ethanol precipitation . purified products were reconstituted in 50 μl of sterile water and quantified using uv absorbance at 260 nm . the full - length pip cdna was amplified from a transfection - ready circular plasmid ( sc118489 , origene technologies , inc ., rockville , md .) using dna primers designed to amplify the full sequence of pip mrna according to genbank ( forward primer : 5 ′- cacattgccttctgttttctc - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 1 ), reverse primer : 5 ′- aagcatgttaagaagtttattttatag - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 2 )). pcr mixtures were prepared to final concentrations of 1 × pcr buffer , 200 μm each ntp , 1 . 5 mm mgcl 2 , 200 nm forward and reverse primers , 0 . 02 u / μl novataq ™ dna polymerase , and varying concentrations of template cdna . for the amplification of pip cdna from the circular plasmid , the pcr conditions were 94 ° c . for 4 min ; 20 cycles of 94 ° c . for 1 min , 59 ° c . for 1 min ( decreased by 0 . 5 ° c . per cycle ), and 72 ° c . for 1 min ; 30 cycles of 94 ° c . for 1 min , 49 ° c . for 1 min , and 72 ° c . for 1 min ; and 72 ° c . for 10 min . after amplification , a t7 promoter was added to the full - length sequence by pcr ( above ) to facilitate transcription of pip mrna ( forward primer : 5 ′- cagtaatacgactcactataggcacattgccttctgttttctc - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 3 )). for the addition of the t7 promoter , the pcr conditions were 94 ° c . for 4 min ; 20 cycles of 94 ° c . for 1 min , 57 ° c . for 1 min ( decreased by 0 . 5 ° c . per cycle ), and 72 ° c . for 1 min ; 30 cycles of 94 ° c . for 1 min , 47 ° c . for 1 min , and 72 ° c . for 1 min ; and 72 ° c . for 10 min . rna was transcribed from a double - stranded dna template which encoded a t7 promoter upstream of the nucleic acids to be transcribed into mrna . solutions for transcription of pip mrna were prepared to final concentrations of 200 nm forward and reverse primers , 1 . 25 u / μl t7 rna polymerase , t7 polymerase transcription buffer ( 120 mm hepes - koh , ph 7 . 5 ; 30 mm mgcl 2 ; 2 mm spermidine ; 40 mm dtt ; 0 . 01 % triton x - 100 ), 2 mm each ntp , 0 . 005 u / μl pyrophosphatase ( new england biolabs , ipswich , mass . ), and 8 % peg . the primers , transcription buffer , and sterile water were mixed and heated to 70 ° c . for 2 minutes , and nucleic acids allowed to anneal into stable conformations at room temperature before additional reagents were added . the solution was incubated at 37 ° c . overnight . a shorter pip mrna which was predicted with energy minimization by mfold to have locally conserved secondary structure in the mb binding region ( bases 292 through 379 in the full - length pip sequence ) was designed . eight ( 8 ) bases were excluded from the native pip mrna in the region , which bases were not predicted to be involved in base - pairing interactions and are expected to have no effect on the mrna conformation ( see fig2 ). this secondary - structure pip mrna construct substitutes for the full - length pip mrna in binding assays and exhibits the sequence 5 ′- gggugacgaaaaccuucuacugggacuuuuacacaacagaacugugcaaauugc agccgucguugauguuau - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 5 ). it forms all of the hydrogen bonds expected to require disruption for mb binding and consists of only 87 bases and , thus , can be chemically synthesized as dna and transcribed to rna . a pip mb was designed based on the mrna sequence for pip mrna ( ncbi accession nm_002652 ) which was determined using genbank entries and a literature reference . expected mrna secondary structures were modeled using mfold energy minimization and a region of secondary structure that was conserved in the majority of possible structures was found . the mb sequence is complementary to the region of conserved secondary structure and incorporates nucleotides at the 5 ′ and 3 ′ ends which are self - complementary , thereby forming a closed , stem - loop structure . a pip mb dna , 5 ′- tgtgcaacgacggctgcaatttgcaca - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 6 ), was chemically synthesized and modified to incorporate a fluorophore and a quencher at the 5 ′ and 3 ′ ends , respectively . a pip mb of the invention consists essentially of tetrachloro - 6 - carboxyfluorescein - tgtgcaacgacggctgcaatttgcaca ( seq id no . 6 )- black hole quencher ® 1 . samples were prepared to give final concentrations of 50 mm hepes , ph 7 . 5 ; 100 mm mgcl 2 ; 200 mm kcl ; 25 mm dtt ; 20 nm mb . all solutions were heated to 95 ° c . for 2 minutes and allowed to anneal at room temperature prior to analysis . fluorescence emission was monitored with excitation at 521 +/− 5 nm and emission at 535 +/− 5 nm at 25 ° c . using a cary eclipse fluorescence spectrophotometer ( agilent technologies , inc ., santa clara , calif .). for temporal analysis of mb - mrna hybridization , each mb sample was spiked with mrna after establishing a fluorescence baseline . fluorescence emission was then monitored for 30 - 60 minutes before the samples were heated to 95 ° c . for 2 minutes and annealed at room temperature . emission was monitored for 10 minutes after annealing . to evaluate the in vitro mb binding to mrna , the baseline fluorescence intensity was established , target mrna was then added , the nucleic acids were annealed , and the fluorescence emission was monitored to establish a maximum intensity . all samples were analyzed in triplicate . the response of the mb to target mrna was monitored as a function of the change in fluorescence from baseline to maximum intensity . the change in fluorescence intensity was determined by averaging the baseline and maximum fluorescence values over 1 minute and calculating the difference . values from the triplicate analysis were averaged and standard deviation was determined for error . analysis of raw data for average fluorescence intensities and standard deviations was performed in microsoft excel ( redmond , wash .) while plotting and curve fitting was performed using igor pro 6 ( lake oswego , oreg .). hybridization of mb to pip mrna over time is shown in fig3 . full - length pip mrna was added to mb at 10 minutes resulted in a gradual increase in fluorescence due to binding . pip mrna and mb were heat denatured and cooled to anneal at 60 minutes , resulting in a dramatic increase in fluorescence intensity as they form a stable duplex , see fig3 a . shorter secondary structure pip mrna ( seq id no . 5 ) was added to mb at 5 minutes , resulting in an increase in fluorescence intensity due to binding follow by a dramatic increase after annealing at 30 minutes , see fig3 b . the mb binds to both constructs , though less effectively to the full - length mrna , likely due to intermolecular interactions within the full - length mrna that are not accounted for in the secondary structure construct . the response of the mb to pip mrna over a range of concentrations up to 20 nm ( n = 3 ) is shown in fig4 . a comparison of the response of pip mb to full - length pip mrna and pip mrna secondary - structure construct over the concentration range of 2 . 5 pm to 2 . 5 nm is shown in fig5 . the dashed line represents the full - length pip mrna and the solid line represents the shorter secondary structure mrna construct for pip mrna ( seq id no . 5 ). the assay is more sensitive to the shorter mrna than to the full - length mrna as indicated by the difference in slopes . non - target rna was used in assays to determine the specificity of a pip mb for the target pip mrna construct . 10 nm non - target mrna ( 5 ′- gcgacccugaugagcccugcgaugcagaaaggugcugacgacacaucgaaacg gu - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 7 )) was added to all samples comprising target pip mrna and binding was evaluated . the response of the pip mb to target pip mrna in the presence of non - target rna was monitored as a function of the change in fluorescence from baseline to maximum intensity . the change in fluorescence intensity was determined by averaging the baseline and maximum fluorescence values over 1 minute and calculating the difference . values from the triplicate analysis were averaged and standard deviation was determined for error . analysis of raw data for average fluorescence intensities and standard deviations was performed in microsoft excel ( redmond , wash .) while plotting and curve fitting was performed using igor pro 6 ( lake oswego , oreg .). the response of the mb to pip mrna over a range of concentrations showing the reproducibility , sensitivity , and specificity of the assay is shown in fig6 . the solid line represents the assay performed in the absence of non - target mrna with an lod of 167 pm and r 2 - value of 0 . 9996 ( n = 3 ). the dashed line indicates the assay performed in the presence of non - target mrna with an lod of 141 pm and r 2 - value of 0 . 9995 ( n = 3 ). the in vitro mb binding assay as in example 3 was repeated for analysis of pip mb response to target pip mrna in complex samples in the presence of undiluted bovine serum . all solutions were heated and annealed prior to the addition of bovine serum . baseline fluorescence intensity was established for 1 minute and then pip mrna was added . the samples were incubated in a 25 ° c . water bath for 3 hours at which point maximum fluorescence intensity was measured . the response of the pip mb to target pip mrna was monitored as a function of the change in fluorescence from baseline to maximum intensity . the change in fluorescence intensity was determined by averaging the baseline and maximum fluorescence values over 1 minute and calculating the difference . values from the triplicate analysis were averaged and standard deviation was determined for error . analysis of raw data for average fluorescence intensities and standard deviations was performed in microsoft excel ( redmond , wash .) while plotting and curve fitting was performed using igor pro 6 ( lake oswego , oreg .). the response of pip mb to varying concentrations of pip mrna in buffered samples and undiluted serum samples showing the robustness of the assay in a complex matrix is shown in fig7 . the dashed line represents undiluted serum samples and the solid line represents buffered samples . for buffered samples , the r 2 value is 0 . 9970 and the lod is 144 pm ( n = 3 ). for undiluted serum samples , the r 2 value is 0 . 9993 and the lod is 57 pm ( n = 3 ). the similar sensitivities and lods in serum samples compared with buffered samples suggest that the mb is sufficiently specific for application to pip mrna detection directly in serum samples . the use of molecular beacons in conjunction with rt - pcr for the detection / quantification of biomarker mrna breast tissue samples of a subject suspected as having breast cancer or tumors of a subject diagnosed with cancer are excised from the subject and the mrna is extracted from the tissue and / or tumor samples . the mrna is subjected to rt - pcr using standard techniques known to those skilled in the art using forward and reverse primers specific for human pip , for example , the primers of seq id no . 1 and seq id no . 2 . after several cycles of amplification , the pip cdna is contacted with pip molecular beacons and the amount of fluorescence in the sample is quantified and compared to rt - pcr amplified negative control samples ( i . e ., do not contain pip mrna ). breast tissue samples of a subject suspected as having breast cancer or tumors of a subject diagnosed with cancer are excised from the subject and the mrna is extracted from the tissue and / or tumor samples . the mrna is subjected to rt - pcr using standard techniques known to those skilled in the art using forward and reverse primers specific for human her2 . after several cycles of amplification , the her2 cdna is contacted with her2 molecular beacons and the amount of fluorescence in the sample is quantified and compared to rt - pcr amplified negative control samples ( i . e ., do not contain her2 mrna ). breast tissue samples of a subject suspected as having breast cancer or tumors of a subject diagnosed with cancer are excised from the subject and the mrna is extracted from the tissue and / or tumor samples . the mrna is subjected to rt - pcr using standard techniques known to those skilled in the art using forward and reverse primers specific for human hmam . after several cycles of amplification , the hmam cdna is contacted with hmam molecular beacons and the amount of fluorescence in the sample is quantified and compared to rt - pcr amplified negative control samples ( i . e ., do not contain hmam mrna ). blood samples from a subject suspected as having breast cancer or blood samples from of a subject diagnosed with cancer are drawn for analysis . the mrna is obtained from the blood or blood products of the subjects and is amplified by rt - pcr and quantified as above . biopsy material from , for example , a lymph node or a tissue , is excised from a subject and prepared according to methods known to those skilled in the art . the biopsy material is fixed and / or permeablized and incubated with a pip , her2 and / or hmam molecular beacon . the fluorescence of the biopsy material is observed using fluorescence microscopy and / or flow cytometric detection . the molecular beacons are observed to selectively bind markers in the biopsy material . blood samples from a subject suspected as having breast cancer or blood samples from of a subject diagnosed with cancer are drawn for analysis . the blood or blood products of the subjects are incubated with the pip , her2 and / or hmam molecular beacons under conditions which allow hybridization of the molecular beacon and the pip , her2 and / or hmam mrna and the fluorescence of the samples is quantified by techniques known to those skilled in the art . it is expected that all three molecular beacons could work together in serum to detect multiple analytes at one time . the her2 molecular beacon comprising the sequence 5 ′- tgccaccagttcagcaggtccgtggca - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 8 ) was chemically synthesized and modified to incorporate a texas red ® fluorophore and a black hole quencher ® 2 at the 5 ′ and 3 ′ ends , respectively . a secondary structure construct was designed to represent the binding region of the full - length her2 mrna . the full - length her2 mrna is 4 , 624 bases and the secondary structure construct represents bases 2 , 651 through 2 , 724 in the full - length sequence ( ncbi accession nos . m12036 , nm_004448 , and nm_001005862 in genbank ); wherein two nucleotides ( gg ) were added for transcriptional efficiency . the nucleotide sequence of the her2 mrna secondary structure construct is 5 ′- ggugccucuuagaccauguccgggaaaaccgcggacgccugggcucccaggac cugcugaacugguguaugcagau - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 9 ). for temporal analysis of mb - mrna hybridization , each mb sample was spiked with mrna after establishing a fluorescence baseline . fluorescence emission was then monitored for 30 - 60 minutes before the samples were heated to 95 ° c . for 2 minutes and annealed at room temperature . emission was monitored for 10 minutes after annealing . to evaluate the in vitro mb binding to mrna , the baseline fluorescence intensity was established , target mrna was then added , the nucleic acids were annealed , and the fluorescence emission was monitored to establish a maximum intensity . all samples were analyzed in triplicate . the response of the mb to target mrna was monitored as a function of the change in fluorescence from baseline to maximum intensity . the change in fluorescence intensity was determined by averaging the baseline and maximum fluorescence values over 1 minute and calculating the difference . values from the triplicate analysis were averaged and standard deviation was determined for error . analysis of raw data for average fluorescence intensities and standard deviations was performed in microsoft excel ( redmond , wash .) while plotting and curve fitting was performed using igor pro 6 ( lake oswego , oreg .). addition of the her2 secondary - structure mrna construct to a sample containing her2 mb causes an increase in fluorescence over time ( fig8 ) as a duplex forms between the molecular beacon and the mrna . the her2 mb shows a her2 mrna dependent increase in fluorescence over a range of mrna concentrations with a limit of detection of 3 . 8 nm . the mb can readily distinguish concentrations between 2 . 5 and 10 nm ( fig9 ). it is possible that an increase in sensitivity could be gained by increasing the concentration range over which the assay is performed from low nanomolar to mid nanomolar concentrations . if the limit on the sensitivity is the formation of mb - mrna constructs , then increasing the concentration of mrna in solution should allow for the formation of more mb - mrna constructs . this would increase the reproducibility of each measurement , and therefore increase the sensitivity of the assay . the in vitro mb binding assay as in example 8 is repeated for analysis of her2 mb response to target her2 mrna in complex samples in the presence of undiluted bovine serum . all solutions are heated and annealed prior to the addition of bovine serum . baseline fluorescence intensity is established for 1 minute and then her2 mrna is added . the samples are incubated in a 25 ° c . water bath for 3 hours at which point maximum fluorescence intensity is measured . the response of the her2 mb to target her2 mrna is monitored as a function of the change in fluorescence from baseline to maximum intensity . the change in fluorescence intensity is determined by averaging the baseline and maximum fluorescence values over 1 minute and calculating the difference . values from the triplicate analysis are averaged and standard deviation is determined for error . analysis of raw data for average fluorescence intensities and standard deviations is performed in microsoft excel ( redmond , wash .) while plotting and curve fitting is performed using igor pro 6 ( lake oswego , oreg .). it is expected that the her2 mb binds to target her2 mrna in complex samples in the presence of serum . an hmam molecular beacon is constructed using an appropriate donor and acceptor pair and analyzed for the specific binding of the hmam molecular beacon to hmam mrna . the binding of the hmam molecular beacon to the hmam mrna is evaluated in the presence or absence of serum . it is expected that the hmam molecular beacon binds to target hmam mrna in complex samples in the presence of serum . 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