Antagonist Antibodies against GDF-8 and Uses in Treatment of ALS and Other GDF-8 Associated Disorders

A method of treating sarcopenia in a mammal, comprising administering to a mammal in need of treatment for sarcopenia a therapeutically effective amount of a GDF-8 specific antibody or antigen binding fragment thereof, said antibody or fragment comprising:

• an antibody variable heavy (VH) region comprising the first, second and third complementarity determining regions (CDR) from the VH region defined by the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:3 or SEQ ID NO:7;
• and
• an antibody variable light (VL) region comprising the first, second and third complementarity determining regions (CDR) from the VL region defined by the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:5 or SEQ ID NO:9.

A method of treating sarcopenia in a mammal, comprising administering to a mammal in need of treatment for sarcopenia a therapeutically effective amount of a GDF-8 specific antibody comprising:

• two antibody heavy chains, each comprising a variable heavy region defined by the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:7 and the constant heavy region from human IgG1;
• and
• two antibody light chains, each comprising a variable light region defined by the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:9 and a constant light region defined by the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:17.