Prostate cancer associated circulating nucleic acid biomarkers

Abstract

The invention provides methods and reagents for diagnosing prostate cancer that are based on the detection of biomarkers in the circulating nucleic acids from a patient to be evaluated.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method of detecting a circulating free DNA (cfDNA) from at least one chromosomal region in cfDNA obtained from a blood, serum or plasma sample from a human patient, comprising:
 sequencing cfDNA obtained from the blood, serum or plasma sample, and   identifying in the sample the presence of a nucleic acid having at least 20 contiguous nucleotides of a nucleic acid sequence free of repetitive elements set forth in Table A, B, C, or D, thereby detecting the cfDNA from the at least one chromosomal region.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , comprising identifying in the sample the presence of a second nucleic acid having at least 20 contiguous nucleotides of a second nucleic acid sequence free of repetitive elements set forth in the same Table. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the nucleic acid sequence is set forth in Table C or D. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said patient is suspected of having colorectal cancer. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein sequencing comprising performing sequencing reactions to sequence cell-free DNA isolated from the sample using an Illumina or SOLiD next generation sequencing platform. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising determining the normalized copy number of the nucleic acid.