Appeal No. 95-4404
Application 07/913,121
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the final rejection of claims 1-19, all
the claims pending in the application. Independent claims 1, 8 and 14 are illustrative of the
subject matter on appeal and read as follows:
1. A method for detecting reverse transcriptase in a sample suspected of
containing reverse transcriptase comprising the steps of:
(A) incubating a synthetic heteropolymeric RNA template molecule containing
40-500 nucleotides with an oligonucleotide primer complementary to a portion of said
RNA molecule and of sufficient length to form a stable template-primer complex:
(B) contacting the complex formed in step (A) with a sample suspected of
containing reverse transcriptase under conditions leading to the production of a cDNA
strand complementary to the template RNA and hybridized thereto if reverse transcriptase
was present;
(C) degrading the RNA template from the RNA-cDNA complex formed in step
(B) resulting in single stranded cDNA;
(D) hybridizing said cDNA with a chemically modified oligonucleotide probe or
probes to permit capture and/or detection of the cDNA-probe complex formed;
(E) separating the cDNA-probe complex formed in step (D) from unreacted
probe, wherein steps (D) and (E) may be carried out sequentially or simultaneously; and
(F) detecting the presence of reverse transcriptase by detecting a label in a
labeled cDNA complex, wherein said label is introduced into said complex from labeled
oligonucleotide primer, labeled oligonucleotide probe or a labeled third oligonucleotide
when the primer is unmodified.
8. A method for detecting and/or quantitating drug resistance of reverse
transcriptase in a sample which comprises:
(A) incubating a synthetic heteropolymeric RNA template molecule containing
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