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What is ACE-031?

What is ACE-031?

First and foremost, ACE-031 is a decoy receptor.  We can’t just leave you hanging there so let’s first delve into what decoy receptors are and how they function so that you can have a better grasp on the specifics of ACE-031.

The primary function of a decoy receptor is to be able to recognize the growth factor specifics without actually doing any of the typical receptor signaling that usually occurs.  We’ve talked about receptors before and their ability to be the shot callers and traffic directors for growth hormones. Well, decoy receptors are synthetic cousins that inhibit signal calling all together by preventing receptors from binding to their ligands and vice versa.

So What About ACE-031?

ACE-031 is a laboratory engineered decoy receptor.  The primary reason for being? Treating dying children suffering from muscular dystrophy.  Understand that myostatin is the naturally occurring substance in the body that regulates muscle growth.  Leveraging ACE-031 to bind to myostatin particles will prevent those same particles from finding their way to their natural partner, the native receptor found in muscle membrane.  Limiting the binding will increase muscle growth by removing the excess of muscle growth-limiting signals.

Only recently proven to be effective in this realm of work, ACE-031 research projects are taking off like wildfire around the world.  Even low dosing has proven to be beneficial with no adverse side effects, leading researchers to believe we can leverage ACE-031 to cure patients of varying degrees of muscular dystrophy entirely.

Promoting Other Muscle Growth

Treating patients with muscular dystrophy isn’t the only intended purpose behind the influx of ACE-031 research.  Think of some of the most important muscles in your body. Consider beyond your rock hard abs and God-like biceps and quads.  Your heart, your masseter, and even the uterus can be overlooked while being some of the most important muscles in the human body.

If ACE-031 can help cure muscular dystrophy, then why would it stop there?  As recently as last August, extremely thorough studies have show promising results regarding the use of ACE-031 (ActRIIB) when it comes to cardiac function and heart health.  Dozens to hundreds of diseases decrease cardiac strength and there is a very real possibility that ACE-031 can be leveraged in the battle against these diseases.

The masseter is the muscle that controls the jaws of mammals.  The average human has something like 200 pounds of strength or pressure when biting down.  Some people suffer gruesome injuries while others struggle with cancer that may deteriorate or even require removal of this muscle; Sometimes the entire jaw.  One of the earliest published reports of ACE-031 study mentions the impressive muscle growth recognized in the jaw area of aged mice, back in 2014.

As for the uterus, thousands of women struggle to give birth every single year.  A variety of deficiencies can prevent a woman from having a natural birth, requiring a cesarean section in order to save both lives.  A frequent issue is that the woman’s uterus simply isn’t strong enough to push out the infant. Future studies will likely prove the benefits of short-term ACE-031 dosing when heading in to labor!

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1 Attie, K M, et al. “A Single Ascending-Dose Study of Muscle Regulator ACE-031 in Healthy Volunteers.” Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports., U.S. National Library of Medicine, Mar. 2013, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23169607.

2 Wen Guo, Karol M Pencina, Thiago Gagliano-Jucá, Ravi Jasuja, Nancy Morris, Karyn E O’Connell, Susan Westmoreland, and Shalender Bhasin, et al. “Effects of an ActRIIB.Fc Ligand Trap on Cardiac Function in Simian Immunodeficiency Virus-Infected Male Rhesus Macaques.” Journal of Endocrine Science., U.S. National Library of Medicine, Aug. 2018, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6041778/.

3 Phonepasong Arounleut, Peter Bialek, Li-Fang Liang, Sunil Upadhyay, Sadanand Fulzele, Maribeth Johnson, Mohammed Elsalanty, Carlos M. Isales, and Mark W. Hamrick, et al. “A Myostatin Inhibitor (Propeptide-Fc) Increases Muscle Mass and Muscle Fiber Size in Aged Mice but Does not Increase Bone Density or Bone Strength.” Exp Gerontol., U.S. National Library of Medicine, Jul. 2013, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3930487/.

 

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