Assay for neuromuscular diseases
The present invention is an assay for determining if a patient has a neuromuscular disease. The method comprises collecting a biological sample from a patient, separating the proteins present in the biological sample, quantitating a panel of proteins by proteomic techniques, analyzing the quantity of the protein panel using biostatistics, and determining whether or not the patient has a neuromuscular disease based on the statistical analysis of the results.
1 . A screening assay for neuromuscular disease comprising:
a) collecting a serum sample from a patient;
b) performing a two-dimensional (2D) gel electrophoretic analysis of the serum sample;
c) staining the 2D gel pattern;
d) quantitating a set of preselected protein spots; and
e) performing a statistical analysis on the quantity of the selected spots to determine the likelihood of the patient having a neuromuscular disease.