Myostatin's Natural Antagonist

Follistatin is the body's own answer to myostatin. Where ACE-031 is a synthetic decoy receptor built to trap myostatin, follistatin is the endogenous binding protein that already does that job — neutralizing myostatin and related TGF-beta ligands to permit muscle growth.

That natural origin is appealing, but it comes with the same caveat as every broad myostatin strategy: the TGF-beta family regulates more than just muscle. Follistatin gene therapy has advanced to clinical trials for conditions like Becker muscular dystrophy, which is the strongest signal that the target is real. Members discuss it as the most 'physiological' of the myostatin-axis approaches.