Research
Hormonal
Decorin is a myokine that directly binds to and inactivates myostatin, thereby promoting muscle growth by inhibiting myostatin's anti-myogenic effects and increasing pro-myogenic factors like Mighty and Myod1.
Decorin is a muscle-derived protein that helps build muscle by blocking myostatin, the body's natural muscle growth brake. By inactivating myostatin, decorin allows pro-growth signals to dominate. It is currently being studied as a potential treatment for muscle wasting.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Decorin directly binds to and inactivates myostatin (a potent inhibitor of muscle growth) in a zinc-dependent manner, and inhibits its anti-myogenic effects (El Shafey et al., 2016). In vivo over-expression of Decorin in murine skeletal muscles promotes expression of the pro-myogenic factor Mighty (Marshall et al., 2008)... Decorin overexpression increases the expression of Myod1 and follistatin, whereas it reduces the muscle-specific ubiquitin ligases atrogin1 and MuRF1 (Marshall et al., 2008).
Why this rating
Strong mechanistic evidence in mice, but limited human clinical data.
Source
Role of Myokines in Regulating Skeletal Muscle Mass and Function
Jong Han Lee et al. · Frontiers in Physiology · 2019
DOI 10.3389/fphys.2019.00042
narrative_reviewCited 425×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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