Novel Therapeutic Strategy for the Prevention of Bone Fractures
Abstract
Our application seeks to develop myostatin inhibitors as novel therapeutic agents for improving muscle and bone strength, and preventing falls and fractures for aging veterans. Our goals for year 1 of the project were to determine how the expression of myostatin, its receptor, and the myostatin antagonist follistatin change with age in musculoskeletal tissues from aged mice and bone marrow samples obtained from young (18-30) and older (50-70) patients in the orthopaedic clinic. Our findings so far demonstrate that, in skeletal muscles from mice, myostatin expression does not change with age but expression of the myostatin antagonist follistatin decreases significantly with age. Data from bone marrow samples show that while myostatin shows a moderate increase with age, and follistatin levels show no change, levels of activin A increase significantly with age. Activin binds the same receptor as myostatin, and inhibits bone mineralization. These data suggest that a decoy receptor that binds both myostatin and activin A may prevent loss of muscle and bone mass with age.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA555932
Entities
People
- Mark W Hamrick
Organizations
- Medical College of Georgia