Skeletal muscle has the ability to achieve rapid repair in response to injury or disease¹. Many individuals with Marfan syndrome (MFS), caused by a deficiency of extracellular fibrillin-1, exhibit myopathy and often are unable to increase muscle mass despite physical exercise. Evidence suggests that selected manifestations of MFS reflect excessive signaling by transforming growth factor (TGF)- (refs. 2,3). TGF- is a known inhibitor of terminal differentiation of cultured myoblasts; however, the functional contribution of TGF- signaling to disease pathogenesis in various inherited myopathic states in vivo remains unknown^{4, 5}. Here we show that increased TGF- activity leads to failed muscle regeneration in fibrillin-1–deficient mice. Systemic antagonism of TGF- through administration of TGF-–neutralizing antibody or the angiotensin II type 1 receptor blocker losartan normalizes muscle architecture, repair and function in vivo. Moreover, we show TGF-–induced failure of muscle regeneration and a similar therapeutic response in a dystrophin-deficient mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

NOTE: In the version of this article initially published, the same panels were inadvertently used to show negative pSmad2/3 and periostin staining in muscle of Fbn1^C1039G/+ mice treated with TGF--neutralizing antibody in both the steady-state (Fig. 1a, right column, second and third rows, respectively) and muscle-regeneration (Fig. 1b, right column, third and fourth rows, respectively) experiments. In reality, these images only relate to the steady-state experiment (Fig. 1a). The intended images for Figure 1b are provided (red, pSmad2/3 staining; green, periostin staining). As both sets of images show negative staining in neutralizing antibody–treated Fbn1^C1039G/+ mice, this does not alter any observations or conclusions discussed in the manuscript. The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

1. McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 733 N Broadway, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA.
2. Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 733 N Broadway, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA.
3. Division of Pediatric Cardiology, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 733 N Broadway, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA.
4. Child Health Institute of New Jersey, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 89 French Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901, USA.
5. Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 720 Rutland Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA.
6. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 655 W. Lombard Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21202, USA.

Correspondence to: Harry C Dietz^1,2 e-mail: hdietz@jhmi.edu

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