INTRACELLULAR COMPLEXES AS BIOMARKERS

摘要

The invention provides a method for determining a disease status of a patient by measuring expression levels of selected intracellular complexes. In one aspect of the invention, the activation status of apoptotic pathways in a patient sample is determined by measuring relative amounts of protein-protein complexes that are characteristic of the apoptotic pathways. In particular, the invention provides a method of determining the activation status of the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway by simultaneously measuring relative amounts of complexes between 14-3-3 proteins and BAD proteins on the one hand and complexes of Bcl-2 proteins and BAD proteins on the other hand. Preferably, methods of the invention are implemented by using sets of binding compounds having releasable molecular tags that are specific for multiple components of one or more complexes formed within apoptotic pathways. After binding molecular tags are released and separated from the assay mixture for analysis.