title: Modulating skeletal muscle mass by postnatal, muscle-specific inactivation of the myostatin gene.
abstract: By using a conditional gene targeting approach exploiting the cre-lox system, we show that postnatal inactivation of the myostatin gene in striated muscle is sufficient to cause a generalized muscular hypertrophy of the same magnitude as that observed for constitutive myostatin knockout mice. This formally demonstrates that striated muscle is the production site of functional myostatin and that this member of the TGFbeta family of growth and differentiation factors regulates muscle mass not only during early embryogenesis but throughout development. It indicates that myostatin antagonist could be used to treat muscle wasting and to promote muscle growth in man and animals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège (B43), 20 Boulevard de Colonster, B-4000 Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Grobet
authors.forename: Dimitri
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pirottin
authors.forename: Frédéric
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Farnir
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Poncelet
authors.forename: Luis Jose
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Royo
authors.forename: Benoît
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Brouwers
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Christians
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Desmecht
authors.forename: Freddy
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Coignoul
authors.forename: Ronald
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kahn
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Georges
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003433:Crosses, Genetic; D019426:Integrases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000378:metabolism*; D016212:Transforming Growth Factor beta / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D016212:Transforming Growth Factor beta; D014764:Viral Proteins; C045073:Cre recombinase; D019426:Integrases