MicroRNAs are endogenous ~22nt RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression at the posttranscriptional level via binding to the 3'-untranslated region (3'UTR) of target mRNAs. The microRNA miR-27a was reported to depress the expression of myostatin, a critical inhibitor of skeletal myogenesis, by binding to its 3'UTR in mouse. In this study, we cloned the full-length 3'UTR of porcine myostatin...

Myostatin, which is a member of the TGF-beta superfamily, is a negative regulator of skeletal muscle formation. Double-muscled Piedmontese cattle have a C313Y mutation in myostatin and show increased skeletal muscle mass which resulted from an increase of myofiber number (hyperplasia) without that of myofiber size (hypertrophy). To examine whether this mutation in myostatin gene affects muscle ...

Myostatin is a novel negative regulator of skeletal muscle mass. Myostatin expression is also found in heart in a much less extent, but it can be upregulated in pathological conditions, such as heart failure. Myostatin may be involved in inhibiting protein synthesis and/or increasing protein degradation in skeletal and cardiac muscles. Herein, we used cell cultures and isolated muscles from rat...

Myostatin is a member of the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) superfamily that functions as a negative regulator of skeletal muscle development and growth. Myostatin blockade therefore offers a strategy for promoting muscle growth in livestock production without resorting to genetic manipulation. In this report, we examined the effect of myostatin inhibition by plasmid-mediated delive...

Mutations in myostatin (GDF8) cause marked increases in muscle mass, suggesting that this transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) superfamily member negatively regulates muscle growth. Myostatin blockade therefore offers a strategy for reversing muscle wasting in Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD) without resorting to genetic manipulation. Here, we demonstrate that pharmacological blockade ...

Myostatin, a negative regulator of muscle mass, is elevated during disuse and starvation. Mammalian hibernation presents a unique scenario, where animals are hypocaloric and in torpor, but the extent of muscle protein loss is minimized. We hypothesized that myostatin expression, which is usually increased early in disuse and under hypocaloric conditions, could be suppressed in this unique model...

Myostatin, a transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) family member, is a potent negative regulator of skeletal muscle growth. In this study we characterized the myostatin signal transduction pathway and examined its effect on bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)-induced adipogenesis. While both BMP7 and BMP2 activated transcription from the BMP-responsive I-BRE-Lux reporter and induced adipogeni...

Myostatin, a member of the TGF-β superfamily of secreted proteins, is expressed primarily in skeletal muscle. It negatively regulates muscle mass and is associated with glucocorticoid-induced muscle atrophy. However, it remains unclear whether myostatin is involved in glucocorticoid-induced muscle protein turnover. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of myostatin in protein...

Myostatin is expressed in skeletal muscle tissue where it functions to suppress myoblast proliferation and myofiber hypertrophy. Recently, myostatin was detected in the tendon, mammary gland, and adipose tissue of mice. We sought to determine whether myostatin is expressed in the liver, spleen, lung, and kidney of pigs. Real-time PCR and Western blots demonstrated that myostatin, follistatin, d...

Myostatin, a member of the transforming growth factor-beta superfamily, is a negative regulator of skeletal muscle mass in mammals. We have studied myostatin expression during embryonic and post-hatching development in zebrafish by semiquantitative RT-PCR. The transcript is present in just-fertilized eggs and declines at 8 h post-fertilization (hpf), suggesting a maternal origin. A secondary ri...