accompanied by an increase in secreted hK10 protein concentration, was observed for a subset of breast, ovarian, and prostate tumor cell lines after 5-aza-2 -dC. Genomic sequencing of sodium-bisulfi te-treated DNA demonstrated that CpG sites within the KLK10 gene exon 3 were highly methylated. Hypermethylation of exon 3 CpG regions was also detected in primary ovarian cancers. Conclusion: These data suggest that CpG island hypermethylation plays an important role in the downregulation of kallikrein 10 mRNA and protein expression, but it cannot explain the pattern of expression of this gene in all cell lines or tissue tested