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Updated: Jan 28, 2026

Culture of Bladder Cancer Organoids as Precision Medicine Tools
Published on: December 28, 2021
Tropomyosins: Potential Biomarkers for Urothelial Bladder Cancer
Nada Humayun-Zakaria1, Roland Arnold2, Anshita Goel3
1Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, College of Medicine and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. n.humayun-zakaria@bham.ac.uk.
Abstract:
Despite the incidence and prevalence of urothelial bladder cancer (UBC), few advances in treatment and diagnosis have been made in recent years. In this review, we discuss potential biomarker candidates: the tropomyosin family of genes, encoded by four loci in the human genome. The expression of these genes is tissue-specific. Tropomyosins are responsible for diverse cellular roles, most notably based upon their interplay with actin to maintain cellular processes, integrity and structure. Tropomyosins exhibit a large variety of splice forms, and altered isoform expression levels have been associated with cancer, including UBC. Notably, tropomyosin isoforms are detectable in urine, offering the potential for non-invasive diagnosis and risk-stratification. This review collates the basic knowledge on tropomyosin and its isoforms, and discusses their relationships with cancer-related phenomena, most specifically in UBC.
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