Superoxide dismutase-2 expression for glaucoma diagnosis
View Patent ↗The present invention concerns a method for diagnosing or monitoring elevated intraocular pressure or glaucoma in a patient comprising providing a biological sample from the patient and measuring the expression level of a superoxide dismutase-2 (SOD-2) gene in the biological sample. The present invention also concerns methods for treating glaucoma or elevated intraocular pressure in a patient comprising administering to a patient an effective amount of an agent that modulates SOD-2 expression or SOD-2 activity.
1. A method for assessing a risk of elevated intraocular pressure or glaucoma in a human patient comprising:
assaying, in a human patient ocular tissue sample, the expression of a polynucleotide comprising the nucleotide sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 and
determining said risk by comparing said expression to a control level, wherein elevated expression relative to a control level correlates to increased risk.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein said assaying comprises:
assaying using a probe having a nucleotide sequence complementary to that set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 or a portion thereof.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein said assaying comprises:
contacting said patient sample with a microarray comprising nucleotide molecules hybridizing to said polynucleotide.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein an mRNA transcript is assayed.
5. The method of claim 4 wherein the mRNA transcript is assayed by amplification of cDNA synthesized from the mRNA transcript.
6. The method of claim 5 wherein the amplification is performed using a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein a protein translation sequence of a nucleotide sequence comprising the sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 is assayed.
8. The method of claim 7 wherein said protein translation sequence comprises the sequence of SEQ ID NO:2.