Objective To screen and identify the novel markers for renal cell carcinoma. Methods The renal cancer A498 cell line was used as the antigen and human normal renal cell line HK-2 was used as control for subtraction biopanning from a phage display peptide library at 37 ℃ The positive and specific binding clones were identified by cell-based ELISA and immunocytochemical staining, and the identified clones were sequenced. Thus the amino acid sequence was deduced and the peptide was synthesized. The peptide was identified by immunofluorescence. Results Through a cell-based ELISA, immunocytochemical staining, and immunofluorescence, the Phage ZT-2 and synthetic peptide ZT-2 were shown to specially bind to the A498. The affinity binding to A498 was the highest (A_(ZT-2)/A_(control) = 3. 15) among the peptides assayed. The optical density of ZT-2 in renal cancer tissue (0. 453±0. 123) was significantly higher than that in normal and inflammatory renal tissue (0. 148±0. 075)(P<0. 01). Conclusions A peptide ZT-2 which is specific binding to renal cancer cell line A498 had been selected from phage display peptide libraries. Therefore, it provides a potential tool for early diagnosis of renal cancer or targeted drug delivery in chemotherapy.