Patent ID: 8207142

Claim:
A method of reducing, inhibiting or reversing nucleic acid methylation in vivo, comprising: comparing the uridine-cytidine kinase level and the methylation state of a mammalian tumor tissue sample to the uridine-cytidine kinase level and the methylation state of a mammalian non-tumor tissue sample to determine whether the mammalian tumor tissue sample has an elevated uridine-cytidine kinase level and an elevated methylation state compared to the mammalian non-tumor tissue sample, wherein the mammalian tumor tissue sample and the mammalian non-tumor tissue sample are from the same tissue type; based on the comparative determination, selecting a mammalian tumor having an elevated uridine-cytidine kinase level and having a hypermethylated DNA sequence that comprises a regulatory region of a tumor suppressor gene; and reducing, inhibiting or reversing DNA methylation in the mammalian tumor in vivo, wherein the reducing, inhibiting or reversing DNA methylation in the mammalian tumor in vivo consists of administering a hypomethylating effective amount of Zebularine, or Zebularine in combination with tetrahydrouridine, to the mammalian tumor having the elevated level of uridine-cytidine kinase and the hypermethylated DNA sequence.