Abstract: New sarcoma cell surface targets have been identified and include LINGO-1, KCNN1 and CDH23. Specific binding agents that specifically bind to these targets include antibodies and aptamers. Methods of treating sarcoma utilize the specific binding agents. Methods of diagnosing and detecting sarcoma, including metastases and residual disease involve determining the expression of LINGO-1, KCNN1 and CDH23.

Abstract: The invention disclosed relates to a PCR primer pair for amplication of chaperonin-60 (cpn60) targets having high G+C content and to a PCR primer “cocktail” to improve the representation of diverse sequences in chaperonin-60 based PCR product libraries derived from complex templates. In previous cpn60-based and 16S rDNA-based studies of mammalian intestinal microbiota, it has been observed that some classes of organisms such as the Actinobacteria, which are known through culture-based studies to be present in large numbers in these environments, are underrepresented or even absent from PCR product libraries. Using library sequence data and reference cpn60 sequence data from cpnDB, the chaperonin sequence database, we designed a pair of PCR primers which can be used alone for higher G+C content targets and, when used in combination with a previously developed degenerate, universal cpn60 primer pair, improve the representation of complex templates with high G+C content.