BALTIMORE, -- Johns Hopkins
scientists in Baltimore say
they've developed a
unique, highly effective, muscle-
building agent.
The scientists -- who first created so-
called
"mighty mice" -- consulted with pharmaceutical
company Wyeth and the biotechnology firm MetaMorphix
in
developing the agent that's more effective at
increasing
muscle mass in mice than a related
potential treatment
for muscular dystrophy now in
clinical trials. The new
agent is a version of a
cellular docking point for the
muscle-limiting
protein myostatin. In mice, two weekly
injections of
the new agent reportedly triggered a 60-
percent
increase in muscle size The researchers' original
mighty mice, created by eliminating the gene that
codes
for myostatin, grew muscles twice as big as
normal mice.
"This new inhibitor of myostatin, known
as ACVR2B, is
very potent and gives very dramatic
effects in the mice,"
said Dr. Se-Jin Lee, a
professor of molecular biology
and genetics in Johns
Hopkins' Institute for Basic Bio-
medical Sciences.
"Its effects were larger and faster
than we've seen
with any other agent, and they were even
larger than
we expected." The research is reported online
in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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