Abstract: The present invention relates to prostate cancer signatures which are useful for providing a clinical assessment of prostate cancer from a biological sample of a subject. By performing initial gene expression studies on urine samples from prostate cancer and non-prostate cancer subjects, and using the PCA3/PSA prostate cancer test as a performance benchmark, the present inventors have surprisingly discovered multiple signatures that are informative in urine-based prostate cancer tests, as well as in tissue-based tests. The signatures relate to combinations of at least two prostate cancer markers whose expression pattern in urine has been validated as being associated (either positively or negatively) with a clinical assessment of prostate cancer. The prostate cancer markers can be used in conjunction with bioinformatics approaches to generate a prostate cancer score, which correlates with a clinical assessment of prostate cancer.

Abstract: The present invention provides a novel method for diagnosing, monitoring, prognosing and staging Lymph Node (LN) status in colorectal cancer (CRC) that is more sensitive and accurate than conventional detection technologies such as histopathology. The Guanylyl Cyclase C (GCC) gene is specifically expressed in apical epithelial cells of the GI tract from the duodenum to the rectum and the detection of GCC mRNA in LNs is indicative of the presence of metastases. Quantitative RT-PCR (RT-qPCR) detection of GCC mRNA to identify the presence of colorectal cancer (CRC) cells in LNs has the potential to aid in CRC staging. When used in combination with glucuronidase B (GUSB), accurate quantification of GCC can be achieved with less than a 2-fold variation between intact and highly degraded RNA specimens.