Increasing Urinary Levels of Modified Nucleosides and Bases During Tumor Development in Mice

Since the first reports on altered urinary excretion patterns of nucleic acid catabolites by humans suffering from various diseases (Weissman et al. 1962, 1963; Mirvish et al. 1971; Pinkard et al. 1972), more and more evidence has accumulated that cancer patients excrete increased amounts of these compounds (Cooper et al. 1977; Schoch and Heller-Schoch 1977; Gehrke et al. 1978; Gehrke et al. 1979). The specificity in the increased excretion rates of the RNA catabolites is demonstrated by the fact that patients suffering from non-cancer diseases, such as acute infections and chronic pulmonary diseases, do not have altered excretion rates of modified RNA constituents (Waalkes et al. 1975; Schoch et al. 1979).