Smoothelin

Smoothelin is a cytoskeletal protein that only exists in smooth muscle cells, and its interaction with actin is one of the core factors maintaining smooth muscle contraction function. Unlike most smooth muscle biomarkers that can be expressed in incompletely differentiated proliferative smooth muscle, Smoothelin only exists in completely differentiated mature smooth muscle. Therefore, Smoothelin can be used as a diagnostic biomarker for smooth muscle tumors in clinical practice. Especially, it can assist in distinguishing between highly differentiated benign diseases and poorly differentiated malignant tumors. Meanwhile, Smoothelin is strongly expressed in muscularis propria but not or weakly expressed in muscularis mucosa of the bladder, which is conducive to the staging of bladder cancer. In addition, in hypertension, atherosclerosis and other diseases, smooth muscle cells may change from contractive state to synthetic state. As a specific marker of contractive smooth muscle cells, Smoothelin has good research value.