| abstract |
Methods of diagnosis or of quantitation of fibrosis are provided that comprise conducting an immunoassay to measure neo-epitope containing protein fragments naturally present in a bioflui sample, and associating an elevation of the measure in the patient above a normal level with the presence or extent of fibrosis. The immunoassay is conducted by a contacting protein fragments naturally present in the sample with an immunological binding partner reactive with a neo-epitope formed by cleavage of a protein by a proteinase and measuring the extent of binding of peptide fragments to the immunological binding partner to measure therein protein fragments comprising the neo-epitope. The protein is collagen type I, collagen type IV, collagen type V, elastin, biglycan, decorin, lumican, versican, perlecan, neurocan, brevican, fibromodulin, serglycin, syndecan, betaglycan, vimentin, or C-reactive protein. |