BCL2 and Duchenne muscular dystrophy: BCL-2 has been shown to have an important role in increasing lifespan, growth rate, and reducing apoptosis following muscle-specific overexpression in Lama2 null mice.47, 48 Furthermore, overexpression of BCL-2 was found to ameliorate muscle weakness and reduce apoptosis in oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD) mouse model.49 As for DMD, transgenic overexpression of BCL-2 did not improve muscle pathology in mdx mice,48, 50 and indeed the effect of Losartan in mdx mice is less pronounced than in dy2J/dy2J mice.15