The ZIC family, which consists of five members including ZIC2, are vertebrate homologues of the Drosophila odd-paired gene and encode zinc finger transcription factor, which are known to be involved in a variety of tumor diseases, including bladder cancer 13, melanoma 14, hepatocellular carcinoma 15, epithelial ovarian tumor 16, malignant pleural mesothelioma 17, liposarcomas 18 and so on. The gene discussed is ZIC1; the disease is urinary bladder carcinoma.