Badly engineered fibrillin lessons from molecular studies of marfan syndrome.

Marfan syndrome (MFS) is one of the most common inherited connective tissue disorders that severely affects the cardiovascular system. Mutations in the gene encoding fibrillin-1 (FBN1) have been shown to cause MFS as well as dominant ectopia lentis and neonatal Marfan syndrome. Fibrillin-1 is the major component of elastic fiber microfibrils in the extracellular matrix of connective tissue. Recent molecular studies have brought some light into understanding the pathogenesis of MFS, but the diagnostic problems still prevail, and targeted therapy of MFS must await better dissection of the role of fibrillin-1 in tissue phenotype using different experimental systems. (Trends Cardiovasc Med 1997;7:282-288). © 1997, Elsevier Science Inc.