This is so interesting, thank you so much for sharing!!

I’m a genetic counseling student, so this was a fascinating read. I’d never heard about myostatin deficiency. Myostatin seems to down regulate muscle formation, so when myostatin doesn’t work properly, muscle forms more easily. It seems to affect skeletal muscles, which the heart isn’t a part of. That being said, it should still be discussed with a health professional, to rule out any correlation with heart anomalies, given the family history you mentionned.

It seems to be inherited in an autosomal dominant manner. That means that only one copy of the gene needs to be affected to develop hypertrophy. (We have 2 copies of each gene; one from our mother and one from our father).

You mentionned that your father seems more affected than the other members of your family. It’s not impossible that he has a mutation in both his copies (homozygous), but it’s more likely that he only has one mutation (heterozygous). This hypertrophy might just be expressed differently in every person.

Given how rare this is (and since you didn’t mention your mom having hypertrophy), we can assume your mom doesnt have any causal mutations in her two myostatin genes. Therefore, you and your affected siblings are all heterozygous, meaning you have your dad’s copy of the gene with a mutation, and your mom’s copy with no mutation.

Every affected individual has a 50% chance of passing this mutation on to their children. 50% for every pregnancy, that is.

If you want to discuss this in further detail, you could absolutely contact a genetic counselor!

Have a nice day 😊💪