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Johns Hopkins University researchers published in Nature the role of the myostatin gene in regulating muscle growth in mice. Myostatin, previously known as GDF-8, is a member of the TGF-beta superfamily expressed in developing and adult skeletal muscle. The researchers found that mice lacking the myostatin gene had muscles that weighed 2-3 times more than normal (p<0.001), resulting in a larger body size with pronounced shoulders and hips. Muscles in these mice had an increased number of cells as well as increased fiber diameter. No other tissue abnormalities were observed in the knockout mice, and the extra muscle did not appear to cause a reduction in the size of other tissues. ...