Methods for predicting drug sensitivity in patients afflicted with an inflammatory disease

Abstract

Methods are disclosed for predicting the efficacy of a drug for treating an inflammatory disease in a human patient, including: obtaining a sample of cells from the patient; obtaining a gene expression profile of the sample in the absence and presence of in vitro modulation of the cells with specific cytokines and/or mediators; and comparing the gene expression profile of the sample with a reference gene expression profile, wherein similarities between the sample expression profile and the reference expression profile predicts the efficacy of the drug for treating the inflammatory disease in the patient.

1 . An expression profile comprising expression levels of gene products from one or more genes described in Tables 1, 2A, 2B, 4A, 4B and 5A-5E.  
     
     
         2 . The expression profile of  claim 1 , wherein the expression profile comprises about 5 informative genes.  
     
     
         3 . The expression profile of  claim 1 , wherein the expression profile comprises about 5 to about 100 informative genes.  
     
     
         4 . The expression profile of  claim 1 , wherein the informative genes exhibit the greatest degree of differential expression between responders and non-responders.