Research

Hormonal

Simultaneous inhibition of MuRF1 and MuRF2 E3 ubiquitin ligases induces synergistic skeletal and cardiac muscle hypertrophy and increases muscle protein synthesis rates.

This research suggests that blocking both MuRF1 and MuRF2 proteins can significantly increase muscle mass and protein synthesis in mice. However, this is a genetic manipulation not currently available or safe for humans, as it also causes severe heart enlargement and early lethality in a large portion of the subjects. It highlights the potential of these proteins as future drug targets for sarcopenia, but current technology does not allow for safe, targeted inhibition in humans.

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Double knockout (dKO) mice obtained by the inactivation of all four MuRF1 and MuRF2 alleles developed extreme cardiac and milder skeletal muscle hypertrophy. Muscle hypertrophy in dKO mice was maintained throughout the murine life span and was associated with chronically activated muscle protein synthesis.
Christian Witt et al. · The EMBO Journal · 2007

Why this rating

High-quality in vivo mouse model data with clear phenotypic outcomes, though translational to humans is not directly tested.

Source

Cooperative control of striated muscle mass and metabolism by MuRF1 and MuRF2

Christian Witt et al. · The EMBO Journal · 2007

DOI 10.1038/sj.emboj.7601952

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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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