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Troponin T is a skeletal and smooth muscle protein useful in laboratory diagnosis of heart attack, as it is released into the blood stream when damage to the heart muscle occurs. It is a part of the troponin complex, where it binds to tropomyosin, interlocking them to form a troponin-tropomyosin complex.
The tissue-specific subtypes are:
Troponin T binds to tropomyosin and helps position it on actin, and with the rest of the troponin complex modulates contraction of striated muscle.
Troponin T was discovered by the German physician Hugo A. Katus at the University of Heidelberg. He also developed the troponin T assay.
In patients with stable coronary artery disease, troponin T concentrations have long been found to be significantly associated with the incidence of cardiovascular death and heart failure, but it was 2014 before it began to be accepted in predicting who would later suffer acute myocardial infarction (heart attack).