Compositions and methods are provided for promoting elastin fiber formation (elastogenesis) in a cell, including methods that comprise contacting a cell that is capable of elastogenesis with (i) a mutated biglycan polypeptide that lacks chondroitin sulphate proteoglycan chains, (ii) a versican V3 isoform polypeptide that lacks most or all of the polypeptide regions encoded by one or more of exons 4, 5 or 6 or by exons 9-10 or 11-13, and/or with (iii) metastatin.
