Inventors:
Michael Xia Wang - Columbia MO, US
Huidong Shi - Martinez GA, US
Srilatha Nalluri - Augusta GA, US
Assignee:
The Curators of the University of Missouri - Columbia MO
International Classification:
C12Q 1/68
Abstract:
The present invention provides a detecting method of detecting malignant cells in a patient's specimen or a biological sample. Specifically, the inventive method includes the steps of extracting a genomic DNA, digesting said genomic DNA with one or multiple methylation sensitive restriction enzymes, and amplifying by PCR with one or multiple selected primers. The PCR can be performed in a conventional or a real-time platform. The inventive method can detect leukemia cells in 90% ALL patients at a sensitivity of up to 10. The inventive method also provides broad clinical applications in cancer (including hematopoietic and solid tumors) screening and risk assessment, early detection and diagnosis confirmation, and therapeutic monitoring, minimal residual disease detection and prognostic prediction.